


I'll Be There For You

by Kate_Shepard



Series: Unexpected [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Canon, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Mass Effect 3: Citadel, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 16:41:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7369510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Shepard/pseuds/Kate_Shepard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kolyat joins Shepard on the Normandy and gets more than he bargained for.</p><p>Sequel to "You Have New Messages, Commander"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Shepard ran through the hospital until she found the door to Thane’s room. A doctor stood outside of it looking at a datapad. She stopped and took a deep breath to center herself. She couldn’t go in and let Thane see her like this. He was one of the best friends she’d ever had and had been there for her in a time when she’d felt very alone. Now it was her turn to be there for him. She caught sight of Kolyat’s back through the window beside the door and her heart twisted for the pain she knew he was about to experience, a pain that she wouldn’t be able to be here to help soothe.

She ran a hand through her hair and straightened her fatigues. They were still damp in places from sweat and bore the impression of her hardsuit over the spine but she hadn’t wanted to take the time to return to the Normandy to clean up. Garrus had taken her armor after she’d stripped out of it so that she could come directly to the hospital. 

She straightened her shoulders and chided herself for stalling but, damn it, she really didn’t want to watch another friend die. It didn’t matter that she’d known it was coming since she met him. She’d stubbornly refused to believe that it could happen any time soon and had insisted in her own mind that he would beat the odds. He’d already lived longer than the doctors had expected. There was every possibility that, before this, he could have lived long enough to see a breakthrough in the treatment for Kepral’s Syndrome. She would kill that wannabe ninja if it was the last thing she did.

The doors opened with a soft swish and she walked through. Kolyat’s eyes caught hers and she read the anguish in their onyx depths. He wasn’t ready, either. She wanted to go to him but this wasn’t his time. This was Thane’s. Kolyat understood that without her needing to say so and simply came over to her and said, “Shepard. I am glad you’re here. He asked me to take off his oxygen mask so he could...be comfortable.” The way his voice broke pierced her and she reached out and brushed her fingers over his arm. “I don’t think it will be very long.”

She gave his hand a squeeze and said softly, “I’m not going anywhere.”

He closed his eyes tightly before releasing her and moving to the opposite side of the bed so that she could go to Thane. Even dying, he maintained his calm air and his arrogance as he all but sneered over the man who’d taken his life. His wracking coughs as he tried to pray tore through her and then Kolyat’s voice, strong and even, took over. He hesitated only when he asked her to join him and she moved to stand where she could see. She’d expected the book to be written in drell, and it was, but there were translations into Galactic Standard below each line. 

Kolyat read the first but then stopped and, though his voice was steady, she could feel the waves of pain pouring off of him. She took over with a glance at Thane to make sure he was all right with her involvement. His face was serene and he looked from her to his son and nodded before turning to look up at something she couldn’t see. When they finished, he turned his head away. Thane’s last breath sounded like a sigh and she thought it held relief at finally being allowed to let go. She wondered if he was with Irikah now and hoped that he’d found peace. 

The way that Kolyat held himself told her that he was fighting not to break, so she went to the bed and gently closed Thane’s eyes for a final time. “Goodbye, Thane. You won’t be alone long,” she told him. She stepped back and waited while Kolyat recited prayers that sounded like ritual and were strangely soothing. When he finished, she went out into the lobby so that he could make the final arrangements. She caught one of the doctors and said, “When his body is prepared for transport, please take it to the Normandy at Docking Bay D-24.”

“Shepard,” he said from behind her, “you don’t have time for that. I can arrange a transport.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I won’t have him loaded up on some commercial freighter like cargo. He’s one of us. The Normandy will take him home. I don’t know if we’ll be able to bring you back, but we can at least get you there.”

“I wanted to talk to you about that,” he said. “First, though, I need a drink. Will you join me? I understand if you have other matters to attend to.”

She shook her head and said, “They can wait for a few damn hours. Where do you want to go?”

“Purgatory, I suppose,” he said. “Aria T’Loak has made it her base of operations, so it is sure to be open.”

Aria was one of the people she needed to see. The pirate queen of Omega could damn well wait, too. She fell in beside him, lending her support without contact. Something told her that if she touched him, he would break. Perhaps it was personal experience. She was feeling fragile herself. This war had taken two dear friends from her in a matter of days and the losses were only beginning. 

She saw his lips quirk in a ghost of a smile when the elevator doors closed in front of him and cocked an eyebrow. “Elevator conversations,” he said.

Realizing that he needed a distraction in order to help hold himself together, she said, “Are there more weird things about drell physiology you’d like to discuss?”

He leaned back against the elevator wall and crossed his arms over his chest like he was trying to hold himself together and said, “I understand humans bathe with soap and water. Drell don’t.”

“How do you get clean?” she asked, playing along.

“Sand,” he said. “Like I said before, we don’t sweat. Our skin produces oils but not anywhere near the extent that humans do. The sand soaks them up and buffs our scales.”

“Sand baths,” she said. “Like Pip.”

“Who or what is a pip?” he asked.

“My space hamster,” she answered. “He takes dust baths.”

“Why did you name him Pip?” he asked with a cock of his head.

“It’s the sound he makes,” she answered. “I’d thought about giving him some epic name but then I realized he was just a pipsqueak and didn’t need a huge name.”

“Pip,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Only you, Shepard.”

“What?” she asked.

“You kill Reapers with thresher maws and yet you keep a space hamster in your cabin on your warship,” he said. 

“I have fish, too,” she told him as the doors opened. 

“Father said…” he stopped and rubbed his fingers over his temples. “Father said there were running bets on the ship every time you bought fish about how long it would take you to kill them.”

“I got a VI,” she told him. “Come on. I think we both need that drink.”

Shepard wasn’t a heavy drinker. She needed a clear head to do her job and drugs or alcohol would hinder her ability to properly run a mission. She avoided drugs like the plague. However, she did drink on rare occasions when she could afford to let her guard down. The Normandy was in dock. They weren’t due to leave for over twenty-four hours and there were no meetings to attend or errands to run that couldn’t wait until the next day. She was going to take a few hours for herself and give what little comfort she could in the time she had. 

They found a relatively quiet corner and slid into a booth. The music was still too loud and the lighting too garish. The dancing felt disrespectful. The coup had ended only hours before and yet people were still here acting as if nothing was wrong. They didn’t seem to realize what the galaxy had lost when Mordin and Thane were so cruelly snuffed out. It was a darker place without them. She wondered if she’d hear their voices in her dreams now.

Kolyat downed his first drink in a single shot before beginning to sip on the next. She did the same and felt the burn of the liquor on the back of her throat. She welcomed it. “What did you want to talk about?” she asked when he looked at her again.

He wasted no time getting to the point. “I want to come with you.”

“Why?” she asked. She wouldn’t turn him down outright but she wasn’t going to agree without knowing his motives, either. He could do a lot of good here with C-Sec but he could also do good as a member of her team.

“I can’t stay here right now, Shepard,” he said. “There are too many memories and, besides, I think I know you well enough to know that you are going to go after that bastard. I want to be there. I want to help you. I have training and I can handle myself in a fight.”

“C-Sec needs you,” she pointed out. “This coup attempt is proof that the station won’t be staying out of the war for long and resources are strained already with all of the refugees coming in. Bailey wouldn’t have pushed you through training so fast if he didn’t need you here.”

“And if something happens to you, the entire war is lost. My presence here means nothing if we can’t beat the Reapers,” he countered. “You need the extra people at your back more than Bailey does. He’s about to get an influx of people into his special task group. You only have a handful of people to stand against the Reapers.”

She sighed and leaned back against the booth seat. He was looking at her intently with fire and determination in his eyes. He wasn’t going to be swayed. She shook her head and said, “Bailey’s going to hate me for this. Fine. You can come with us but you have to prove yourself like everyone else. You’ll start on smaller missions. I have a team that’s already faced the Reapers. If you can’t handle it, I’m sending you back here. I know you want to avenge your father, but if I don’t think you can stand up against that assassin, I won’t bring you. I will not have him take another Krios from me.”

“Fair enough,” he said and shuddered. “He’s gone. I didn’t…I thought we had more time.”

“We always do,” she said quietly and tossed back the remainder of her drink. “You okay?”

“Is it later yet?” he asked.

She looked around the bar. No one seemed to be paying attention but there were still a lot of people here. “Not yet,” she answered. “Look, I need to talk to Aria. Wait for me.”


	2. Chapter 2

When she returned from speaking to the de facto queen of Omega, she led Kolyat out of the bar and hailed a skycab to the Presidium Suites. She’d considered taking him back to the ship but knew that the moment she stepped on board, she’d be pulled in a hundred different directions. The hotel would be quiet and he could fall apart there. He looked at her curiously but followed her up to the room where she stayed when she was here. 

“I thought you’d have an apartment somewhere,” he commented as she unlocked the door.

“I’ve thought about it,” she said, “but I’m not here enough to justify it. The Normandy is my home.”

He followed her into the living area of the suite and sank down onto the couch with his head in his hands. She rummaged through the shore bag someone—probably Liara—had had delivered until she found the bottle of brandy Vega had slipped in there last time with a wink and a, “Go have some fun, Lola.”

He accepted the glass she handed him but didn’t drink. It dangled seemingly forgotten from his fingertips as he stared bleakly at the floor. When he started to shake, she set aside her own glass and took his and placed it on the table before reaching over to rub a hand over his back. She had never been very good at giving comfort but she recalled the way she’d held Tali when they’d found her father on the Alarei and channeled that now. Her words generally failed her in these situations but touch was universal.

She knew the pain he was feeling now. His mother was long dead, his father was gone, and, while she knew that Thane had referenced aunts and uncles on Kahje, she didn’t know if he even had that extended family now. The feeling of being utterly alone in the galaxy was one with which she was familiar and she was determined to show him that it was wrong. He leaned into her hand and she drew him in until his head was on her shoulders and her arms were around him. His body shook in earnest now as the sobs tore from his body.

“It’s all right,” she said softly. “Let it out. I’m here.”

Time lost all meaning as she held him through the storm. His arms locked around her and he held onto her like he was drowning. She didn’t know everything she said to him. The words themselves were unimportant. What mattered was the reassurance that he wasn’t alone. She felt his tears hot against her shoulder and was surprised for a moment by his open display of emotion with someone who was still a virtual stranger until she remembered a conversation with Thane in which he’d explained to her that drell were more expressive in their feelings and didn’t see tears as a sign of weakness in the same way that some humans—including herself when applied to her—did. Others could cry. She could not. Thane had thought that ridiculous.

She laid her cheek against the top of his smooth head and crooned to him, trying to imitate the soothing purr that she’d heard from Thane when she had been injured or distressed. Her vocal chords didn’t work in the same way that theirs did but it seemed that she was able to approximate it closely enough for he began to relax by degrees. His harsh, gasping breaths smoothed out and the shaking eased until his grief was a trickle rather than a waterfall. 

“I’m sorry,” he said into her shoulder. 

“Why?” she asked, stroking his back.

“Humans don’t do this,” he said.

“What? Cry?” she asked. When he nodded, she said, “What gave you that idea? When I got rescued from Mindoir after losing my family, I cried for days.”

“You were a child,” he said. 

“Humans cry,” she told him, “even the adults, especially when someone dies. Some days I feel like I’m so full of tears that I’m going to start and never stop. It just isn’t later for me yet. I can’t afford to fall apart now. I don’t know if I’ll be able to put myself back together.” 

He asked hesitantly, “Could I…could I stay here? I can sleep on the couch. His things are still in my apartment. I don’t think I can…”

“Yeah,” she said. She didn’t think he needed to be alone tonight anyway. “But you’re too long for the couch. I’ll take it. You take the bed.”

He straightened and scowled at her. “I’m not taking your bed away.”

“I have a very big, very comfortable one on the Normandy,” she told him. “You are going to have either a hard, narrow bunk or a cot. I can handle the couch for a night.”

“Or we can both be adults and acknowledge that sharing a bed doesn’t necessitate anything but sleep,” he countered.

She hadn’t slept in a bed with someone else since…hell, she couldn’t remember how long it had been. Even that one stupid night with Kaidan before Ilos, she’d gotten up when he’d fallen asleep and prepared for the mission before going to stand by her desk and wonder what the hell she’d been thinking. The closest she’d come in years had been laying out a bedroll in the midst of her team while waiting for the shuttle to return for exfil after a mission.

That didn’t make him wrong, though. The bed would be much more comfortable than the couch and it was certainly big enough for two people. That they were male and female and that they’d flirted a few times didn’t mean that it meant anything or that they had to do anything but sleep. She trusted him not to take advantage of the situation, so she shrugged and said, “All right.”

They settled in with their backs to each other and she listened to the even sound of his breathing in the dark while she tried to identify what seemed so odd about it. His lungs didn’t crackle when he breathed. She hadn’t noticed until then just how prominent the sound had become with Thane even before she’d returned to Earth. “You don’t have Kepral’s,” she said without thinking. 

“No,” he said. “Mother and then my aunts and uncles limited my exposure to Kahje’s humidity. Father’s training utilized it many times so he was virtually guaranteed to get it. Almost all of those who serve under the Compact do. Feron is one of the lucky ones.”

“You know Feron?” she asked. “And he was trained by the hanar?”

“We met while you were incarcerated,” he said. “We’re close in age and he’d come to the Citadel on assignment for Liara. She contacted us and asked if he could stay with us while he was there. She thought it would be good for him to spend some time with his own people. We became friends.”

“Oh,” she said. “He messaged me a few days ago. I’m glad he’s doing better.”

“Why did you ask about Kepral’s?” he asked her and she felt the bed shift as he rolled to face her.

“Your breathing is clear,” she answered. “You could hear Thane’s, especially after a long mission. He gave me a scare once after we infiltrated that derelict Reaper to get its IFF. We had to run, carrying Legion, while being chased by husks. It sounded like he had rice cereal in his lungs. He refused to go to the med bay.”

“There was nothing they could do to help at that point,” Kolyat said. 

She didn’t mention the lung transplant that Thane had refused. She hadn’t understood his decision to do so at the time but hadn’t pushed. It had been his right to make his own choices for his life and she’d respected that even if she hadn’t liked his decision. After hearing that last, long sigh, however, she thought she now understood. He was ready. He’d been ready before she’d even met him. His life had been long and lonely and filled with pain and strife. He had earned his rest. That didn’t make his loss any easier to bear but she could understand being tired of fighting.

“I’m glad you don’t have it,” she said softly and closed her eyes.

A weight across her waist and another pinning her legs roused her a few hours later. Her hand twitched reflexively as she reached for her pistol before the sound of breathing reminded her of where she was. The drell in the bed stirred but didn’t wake. She turned her head and had to stifle a chuckle. He had sprawled out in the night and now his lanky body covered most of the bed. She was at the edge, held in place only by the weight of the arm and leg he’d thrown across her in his sleep. 

His eyes were closed and she took the opportunity to really look at him. His features were sharper than Thane’s. He didn’t have the same expressiveness as his father and she realized that she’d never seen him truly smile. Thane had been reserved when he’d first joined her team but, by the time their mission had been completed, he’d warmed considerably. He had even begun to share in the jokes that she and Garrus regularly made while out on a mission and she’d come to appreciate seeing him smile when she came by to talk to him. He’d become an open book to her. 

Kolyat, on the other hand, was harder in a way and, where Thane had to smooth out his features to gain that flat, emotionless expression that the assassin bore, he seemed to have to focus in order to let his emotions show. She wondered if it was just a difference in their natures or if it spoke of Thane’s comfort in his role due to age and experience where Kolyat still felt the need to prove himself. 

Kol reminded her a bit of Garrus. Both had gone through periods of deep-seated anger. Both had looked to her as a mentor of sorts. Both had come into their own, though Kolyat was still working on that. He had come a long way from the kid trying to find a way to be closer to the father he’d never truly known. His anger had faded and had been replaced by a quiet maturity. Beneath that, though, lay a forceful personality with what she expected to be a wicked sense of humor. He just needed to learn that he could indulge it without it taking away from his capability. That would come with confidence in his abilities. Joining her crew would either bring out the remainder of his potential or snuff out what little joy remained in him. She sincerely hoped it wasn’t the latter and that she was making the right decision by allowing him to come along.

She checked the time and saw that it was still the middle of the night cycle, so she returned to her previous position and tried to will herself back into sleep. It was becoming a luxury and one so rare that she felt guilty for squandering even a moment of it. Garrus was right that she needed rest in order to continue to lead. The opportunities where she could do so without interruption were few and far between. 

Kolyat stirred again, pulling her into him so that she was flush against him. His arm tightened around her waist and she stiffened as she felt his lips brush the back of her neck. She was taken off guard by the quick flare of desire but then he simply buried his face against the back of her shoulder and his breathing evened out again. She relaxed into the unconscious embrace and let herself enjoy the novelty of being held in the dark. She realized that she hadn’t dreamed and the hope that she would be able to get through the reminder of the night in the same way relaxed her enough that she was able to return to sleep.

___

Kolyat woke to the sound of ragged breathing as the human beside him bolted upright. Her eyes were open and fixed on a point on the wall. His training kicked in and he reached for the pistol on the nightstand as he looked around the dim room for the threat that had woken her. When he saw that her own hands were empty, he relaxed slightly. Whatever had startled her wasn’t in the room but in her head. Fine tremors ran through her as she leaned forward and cradled her head in her hands. She didn’t seem to realize that he was awake. He wondered whether he should try to comfort her or pretend to be asleep in order to give her privacy. 

Her shuddering breaths made the decision for him. He said her name quietly and placed a hand on her back as she’d done for him. He could feel her muscles trembling through the thin fabric of the camisole she wore and she didn’t pull away. “I’m all right,” she said dully. “Just a dream.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked as he pulled himself to a sitting position and propped against the headboard. She stiffened for a moment but then relaxed and allowed him to direct her back into his arms. 

She didn’t look at him as she said, “Do drell have nightmares?”

“Yes,” he answered. “I don’t think they work the same way as humans’ do. From the descriptions I’ve heard, it seems that yours create new scenarios like a horror vid or something. Ours are just extensions of our solipsism. We can get trapped in a bad memory while it replays over and over and we’re forced to relive it.”

“A horror vid,” she said with a bitter laugh. “That sounds about right.”

“Does it help to talk about them?” he asked. 

“It doesn’t seem to help avoiding it,” she said. “I used to have nightmares about Mindoir and then about Akuze. When I was ‘relieved of duty’ I dreamed about the Collector base. I thought all of those were bad. In a way, they were worse than this but this…there’s something about this dream that tears through my psyche.”

He pulled her closer and felt her head lean back onto his shoulder. Her hair brushed his face and he was momentarily distracted by how soft it was. He’d never felt a human’s hair before. He pushed the awareness away and tucked the loose strands behind her ear. “Go on,” he encouraged.

“I’m in a forest in what looks like winter. All of the trees are bare and it’s dark like twilight or that moment before dawn when the light is just beginning to filter through but there’s no sun. The sky is overcast and, at first, I think it’s snowing. It always takes me a moment to realize that it isn’t snow. It’s ashes. Then I see the shadows between the trees. They look vaguely like people and they whisper to me in the voices of the dead but when I look directly at them, they disappear. I almost always dream in black and white. I don’t know why. I’ve never really questioned it or paid attention until now, so the forest being colorless isn’t remarkable. I’ve actually used that at times to differentiate between dreams and waking.”

She hesitated and then said, “There was this boy back on Earth. He was, I don’t know, maybe five or six. I wanted to save him. I tried to save him but I failed. I watched him die. In my dreams, he’s running through the woods and I have to get to him. I know something is coming and I need to save him but I can’t run. The harder I fight to move quickly, to get to him, the more I feel like every part of my body has been filled with lead like when I’m being chased by the thresher maw in my dreams about Akuze. It’s like trying to run through water up to your neck. You push and it pushes back. I chase him and chase him and then he’s there, he’s right there and then there’s the roar of the Reaper and the boy burns and I’m frozen in place, reaching for him while he looks at me with those bright blue eyes and that golden flame eating his skin and there’s nothing I can do. And the color just makes it feel so real.”

“Gods, Shepard,” he breathed. At least in his own dreams, he knew that it was something that had already happened and how it ended. He was aware that it was just a memory as it wasn’t much different from the solipsism that he experienced in his waking hours. He couldn’t imagine his own mind turning against him to torture him with experiences that weren’t real and yet felt that way. Her own body was torturing her and now it had taken even the peace of knowing the difference between dreams and waking.

She rubbed her hands over her arms and said, “I’m okay now. It just takes me a few minutes now to remind myself it’s just a dream.” She paused and then admitted, “Thane was there tonight. Mordin, too. I’d gotten used to Ashley, Jenkins, my squad from Akuze, my family and neighbors from Mindoir.”

“What do they say?” he asked.

“I can’t make a lot of it out,” she said as she twisted the sheet in her hands. “Some of them sound like they’re asking for help. Some of them repeat things they said when they were alive. Thane just said my name.” His arm tightened around her and she shifted so that she was leaning into him. She said quietly, “Thank you. I’m not used to having…this.”

He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and said, “Any time, Shepard. It’s still early. You should try to go back to sleep. I’ll keep the nightmares away.” 

He maneuvered them so that they were lying flat again and her head rested on his shoulder. Her hand curled up beneath her chin and then flattened over his chest. She said quietly, “Your heartbeat is different. And it’s in the wrong place. It’s kind of nice, though.”

He allowed his hand to come up to her head and threaded his fingers through her hair. She sighed and the tension seemed to drain out of her so he continued to stroke the silky strands until her breathing changed and he knew she’d fallen asleep. He lay awake in the dark for a long time and listened to her breathe.


	3. Chapter 3

True to her word, Shepard made the trip to Kahje. She asked if she could join them when they committed his father’s body to the sea. Garrus, Joker, and the doctor came as well and Shepard and Garrus stood silent honor guard over the body of their friend and teammate. Before the hanar lifted his body from the pod to wrap it in sea vines, they all stepped forward and gave a sharp salute. It was hard to tell with the incessant rain streaming down her face, but he thought that some of the beads of moisture dripping from Shepard’s nose came from her eyes rather than the sky. He was surprised when her voice joined his own and the hanar’s as they lifted him. “The fire has gone to be kindled anew.” He wondered how she knew that. 

He was glad that they had come. His father’s parents were long dead and his mother’s family had turned their backs on Thane when Irikah died and Kolyat had been left in their care. If Shepard had not helped reunite them and if she and the crewmembers who’d known him had not come, there would have been no one but the hanar to deliver his body to the sea. That night, he and Shepard fell asleep together on the couch in the lounge. She was already gone when he woke.

Kolyat was completely unprepared for life aboard the Normandy. The only ships he’d ever been on had been the transports that had taken him from Kahje to the Citadel. He had never really thought about the support crew required to man a vessel like the Normandy and was amazed at the number of people that called the Normandy home. Shepard had explained the sleeper pods and the concept of hot bunking to him when he asked where everyone slept. He didn’t like the idea of sleeping in a stranger’s bed and sharing a foot locker with someone he didn’t know, so he’d elected to take over his father’s room instead and she’d found a cot for him that he tucked away into a corner. 

It was strange being in the room where his father had lived for half a year and knowing that Thane had sat at this table when he’d composed his messages to him, had carefully arrayed his weapons in the backlit display on the wall, had watched the glow of the drive core through this window. It was stranger still to walk out of his room and see his father’s name in blocky human letters on the memorial wall that Shepard had erected. The Normandy could have been manned by the spirits of the ship alone. It was a stark testament to the sacrifices that had brought her here and all of the losses she had suffered. The blank spaces in the wall haunted him and made him wonder how many more names would be added before the end. Would his own find its place in the slot below his father’s?

If the crew took issue with a drell being on board, they didn’t show it. He’d met Garrus a handful of times before and knew of Liara from Feron. He knew the doctor as she had collaborated with Dr. Michel on his father’s treatment at Huerta and she greeted him warmly. The pilot, of course, had known Thane as well and Kolyat was touched by his quiet but genuine, “Hey, sorry about your dad,” when he’d come on board. Shepard told him that a couple of the engineers below had been with them before as well and that she’d found the human biotic, Jack, and rescued her from Grissom Academy before the coup. The cook, she said, was the same and, while he wasn’t the greatest, he’d learned how to make some drell dishes for Thane. Aside from those few, though, everyone was either new or had served with her during the hunt for Saren.

He liked the shuttle pilot, Cortez, but wasn’t sure what to think about the bulky soldier who flirted shamelessly with Shepard and called her Lola. He’d begun to think that he had misjudged her and that there was something between the two until he realized what she was doing. Kolyat had gone down to the shuttle bay to practice the katas his father had taught him in one of the alcoves created by the stacks of crates. He’d told himself not to listen when he heard Shepard and the soldier, Vega, begin to speak but the tones of their voices caught his attention and wouldn’t let go. His hands had curled involuntarily into fists and he’d berated himself over his jealousy. Drell were territorial by nature but he had no claim to her and no right to feel possessive over her.

He’d listened with growing discomfort as the flirting grew more intense. Shepard pushed until he thought that she was going to suggest that the two of them go at it right there on the deck of the shuttle bay. Then Vega had stammered something and said something about blushing, whatever that was, and Shepard had laughed victoriously. Cortez had been passing by and stopped for a moment to say, “Don’t worry. That’s just how they interact. Vega likes to push the envelope and she likes to make him eat it. It’s a…dominance thing, I guess you’d call it. He thinks he’s an alpha until she comes down and puts him back in his place.”

That was something Kol could understand. If the crew was like a family, which he’d begun to see it was, then Shepard was the matriarch. She was a single female. Vega was a single male. From what he’d seen, humans weren’t like drell. For the most part, the males of the species were the dominant ones. The human man probably wasn’t accustomed to serving under a female and was trying to re-establish what he felt was a more natural order. Shepard was having none of it and used his own tactics against him. No matter how advanced a species became, they were all subject to their own instinctive behaviors at times. 

The only person on the ship that he’d seen get away with pushing her was Garrus and she treated him more like an equal than a subordinate. She trusted the turian implicitly and he supported her without question. It was clear to all who met them that they were a team though, despite their easy camaraderie and open affection, there seemed to be no romantic feeling there. He remembered his father telling him that Garrus had served with her during the hunt for Saren, which meant that the turian was the only one who’d been with her through the whole thing. 

The yeoman who’d irritated his father had been replaced by an unassuming, friendly woman named Samantha. She was one of the few who directly interacted with the ground team that was new and seemed to feel as out of place as he did. She seemed grateful when he took a seat beside her in the mess hall or stopped by her station to talk to him and admitted that she felt intimidated by Shepard’s team. “Some of them have known each other for years,” she said. “Garrus Vakarian is almost as famous as the commander herself. Liara T’Soni is the—” she lowered her voice, “the damn Shadow Broker as I’m sure you know because, from what I heard, your father was the one with Shepard when they took the old one down.”

“Yes, he told me about that,” he said. 

“Major Alenko is the second human Spectre,” she continued. “I never thought I’d be serving on a ship with one Spectre, much less two. Then there’s EDI. Can you believe we have a fully self-aware AI on the ship? And that new body…shit, I said that out loud, didn’t I? Sorry, EDI.”

“It is quite all right, Specialist Traynor,” the AI responded. 

Kolyat found the specialist’s crush on the AI amusing and her openness refreshing. He was also gratified to see the look that passed over Shepard’s face when she took a seat beside him at the table and glanced between himself and the other human woman. Traynor stammered something and took her empty tray to the recycling bin. Shepard leaned over and whispered, “You know she likes women, right?”

“Jealous?” he asked with a smug grin. 

“No,” she said quickly. “Just didn’t want you wasting your time.”

“Mm-hmm,” he hummed. “Keep telling yourself that, Commander.”

“I do not—” her eyes narrowed. “You’re messing with me. You’re an ass. You know that, Krios?” she said with a shake of her head. 

“Commander,” he said piously, “you wound me. I am simply looking out for your best interests.”

“Oh, really?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and raising a brow. “How is that?”

“Someone needs to keep you humble,” he answered with a grin.

“Right,” she drawled. “And you’re just the guy to do it. I should have left your ass with C-Sec.”

“You’d have missed me,” he said. 

“Uh-huh. So how are you settling in?” she asked seriously.

“It is…strange being aboard a warship,” he admitted. “I had thought the Citadel was crowded. The Life Support room feels almost luxurious when I think about multiple soldiers sharing a few square feet of space for months on end. Even with the privacy of your cabin, I understand now why you sometimes need to get away. We have done nothing but travel so far and yet this is the first time I’ve seen you eat a meal sitting down. Is it always this busy for you?”

She nodded. “The work is never done. Even when we aren’t actively engaging the enemy, there are still forces to coordinate, briefings with the admirals, briefings with the Council, endless reports to write and submit, resources to locate and obtain, personal crises with the crew to sort out, maintenance to the ship to arrange, crew schedules to write up, and more. I don’t have an executive officer assigned yet so all of the things my XO would normally handle have fallen to me as well.”

“I had thought that Major Alenko would be your executive officer,” he said. “Unless I’m confused on my Alliance ranks. He’s a Spectre as well and technically outranks you now, right?”

“Yeah,” she said without bitterness. “But he and I are…still at odds. The XO is one of the few people who have the authority to relieve the captain of command. I won’t give him that power until I’m sure he won’t decide one day that I’m some undercover agent of Cerberus and try to take me down. Honestly, I think I’m going to name Garrus.”

“Can you do that?” he asked. “This is an Alliance ship. He’s a turian.”

“This is my ship,” she told him. “She bears Alliance colors now because I allowed them to retrofit her as a show of good faith. I was going to let Anderson use her while I was locked up, but legally she belongs to me. Every Spectre has to have their own ship and, as a Spectre, I can name anyone I want.”

“I think Garrus would be a good choice, then,” he said. “You trust him. You’re the only one more familiar with the mission than he is. The crew respects him.”

She nodded as she took the last bite of…something…from her plate and stood. “That’s what I was thinking. By the way, I came down to let you know that we’re heading to Arrae. Traynor found a group of scientists that have cut ties with Cerberus and are requesting evac. You’ve fought Cerberus before, so I figure this will be a good opportunity to evaluate you. You and Garrus will be my ground team for this one.”


	4. Chapter 4

If Kol had any doubts about his father’s use of the word siha for Shepard, they were dispelled the moment he saw her fight. A warrior-angel, indeed. She led the way to the facility with Garrus and Kolyat close behind and took up position with the heavy Black Widow sniper rifle she had requisitioned to replace the M-98 Widow that had been confiscated from her. Garrus took the opposite side with his Mantis and Shepard shot Kol a look of surprise when he knelt on the other side of her and drew the Viper she’d given him the year before. 

He’d been practicing with the rifle and, while he was nowhere near as skilled as the other two, he was pleased with the number of Cerberus soldiers who went down in his scope. He noted as they approached the entryway to the facility that he could identify each person’s kills. Garrus’ had neat holes in the center of their foreheads while the Black Widow simply obliterated their skulls. He envied their precision but she nudged one trooper with the toe of her boot and said, “Clean and through the heart. Good work,” before her head turned and she took off at a run for one of the scientists’ guards. He heard her say, “Jacob?” but was still focused on the praise she’d given and didn’t immediately connect the name with the man who’d known his father. 

“Is that Thane’s kid?” the dark-skinned man asked. His voice sounded strained and he was clutching his abdomen but he was standing.

“Yeah,” she said. “He’s with us now.”

“Huh,” Jacob said. “You know; I didn’t like your father when he first joined up with him but he’s a good guy. How’s he doing?”

“He died,” Shepard answered. 

“Damn,” Jacob said, sounding genuinely regretful. “We all knew it was coming, but still, I’m sorry. If you’re half the fighter your old man was, Shepard’s lucky to have you at her back.”

“Thank you,” Kolyat said. He wished that his father could have seen the level of respect held for him by her crew. 

They proceeded into the facility and Kolyat and Garrus held back while she spoke with the group. They followed her while she explored as the scientists finished the last of their packing and saw her surreptitiously slip a vial into one of the hidden compartments in her armor. She identified it as a poison designed for turians and winked at Garrus. “Saved your life,” she whispered. “Again.”

“Remind me who pushed you out of the way of that exploding Atlas mech at Grissom Academy?” Garrus said with a grin. 

“Garm,” she retorted.

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t think Garm was the one.”

“Who is Garm?” Kolyat asked.

“Garm was the leader of the Blood Pack on Omega,” Shepard said. “I kept him from grinding Garrus into turian dust.”

“She did a lot more than that,” Garrus said with a hint of sadness in his subvocals.

“Sorry,” Shepard said.

“It’s all right,” Garrus told her. “It’s gotten easier.”

Kolyat had the impression that he was missing something but attributed it to shared history that was none of his business and put it out of his mind as they moved out to restore power to the AA guns. He was beginning to see why Thane had told him that nothing with Shepard was ever simple. Cerberus was determined to get these scientists or their data or both back and threw troops at them in wave after wave. Shepard and Garrus didn’t seem surprised, so he assumed that this was normal and settled in for a long fight. 

“Kolyat,” she said when a shuttle flew in to deposit more soldiers on the roof. “Can you throw?”

“Yes,” he answered and directed a broad throw field at the open door of the shuttle. The soldiers shouted in surprise and then were silent. 

A look passed between Shepard and Garrus and he saw her grin. Garrus said warmly, “Just like old times, eh, Shepard?”

He had expected a fight when the shuttles containing the civilians took off and wasn’t disappointed. This was different from his training in C-Sec but he was satisfied to find that he could keep up with the other two without issue. Shepard had held him back before but, when the troopers stormed the landing pad she nodded to him and turned him loose. He exchanged the sniper rifle for a pistol with a grin and moved into the fray. Behind him, he heard the crack of Garrus’ Mantis and the roaring bang of Shepard’s Black Widow. His pistol was quiet by comparison but the enemies fell to it as well. 

His biotics, though, were what had earned him his spot in the Special Response team for C-Sec. He wasn’t the hand-to-hand master that his father was, though he’d been able to take Thane down a time or two once his illness had weakened him, but his biotics were stronger and rivaled asari. He cast a reave a soldier attempting to flank Shepard and realized he’d surprised her once more. He didn’t have time to focus on her reaction, though, before spinning to confront a trio of commandos. The first one’s head ruptured as Shepard’s rifle cracked and he shot the other two in quick succession before turning again to take out an engineer attempting to set up a turret. 

The atlas mech took him completely by surprise and he rolled into cover as a fireball whistled past his head from Shepard’s direction. The mech sparked as Garrus overloaded its shields. “Warp and throw!” Shepard ordered over the comm. He waited for the atlas to break in its firing before kneeling up to warp its shields. He didn’t know how well his throw would work on a target that size but did it anyway and the resulting biotic explosion caused her to whoop in his ear. He hadn’t known he could do that but was pleased to see that it had not only heavily damaged the mechs but had also taken down a centurion and several of the assault troopers nearby. He ducked back into cover as Shepard’s rifle bucked and he heard glass shatter. When he looked out, the window over the cockpit was broken and he fired his pistol at the pilot.

“Go, go, go!” Shepard shouted as she traded her rifle for her pistol and waved them toward the shuttle that was flying in. He ran for it with Garrus by his side as an army of soldiers poured out of the facility. His heart pounded at the sight of them and Shepard, still firing on them. 

“Come on!” he shouted at her as Garrus grabbed his arm and threw him into the shuttle. The turian jumped in and only then did Shepard turn and run. She leapt into the shuttle beside them and slammed a fist against the bulkhead. The door slid closed as the shuttle lifted off. “What the hell were you doing?” he demanded of her.

“First one out, last one in,” she answered. “You did well.”

Garrus nodded and said, “Is it just me or does he move like Thane?”

“Yeah, he does,” Shepard agreed. “I didn’t think anyone could be as fast as he was but Kol’s a very close second. He isn’t as accurate but that’ll come with practice. His biotics are stronger than Liara’s, too. And I never had to tell him where to go even though that was the first time we’ve fought together. He went where he was needed. What do you think?”

Garrus leaned back against the bulkhead and crossed his arms in an unconscious mirroring of Shepard’s posture and said, “He wasn’t expecting that mech and clearly didn’t know how to counter it, but he got out of the way and it didn’t shake him. He didn’t question or hesitate when you gave him an order, either. He’s conscious of the field around him and never crossed into my line of fire even when he couldn’t see me directly, which says he was either paying attention to where we were or has a good eye for vantage points. I say yes.”

Jacob added, “That biotic explosion was one of the strongest I’ve seen. I couldn’t have done that.”

Shepard looked at him and smiled. “Welcome to the dream team, Kolyat.”

“Dream team?” he asked.

Garrus answered, “It’s a little name she came up with for her regular ground team. She rotates people on occasion to keep them sharp but the dream team is the one she takes in when everything’s going to hell. We’re the ones who can read her mind. It was Tali and me and then Thane and me and then Liara and me. Now it’s you and me.”

“Won’t Liara have a problem with that?” he asked.

Garrus and Shepard looked at each other and laughed. Shepard said, “I think she’ll be happy she doesn’t have to tear herself away from her terminals. She’s become kind of…obsessed.” With that, she turned to Jacob and started trying to convince him to come back to the crew.


	5. Chapter 5

Despite being added to the so-called dream team, Kolyat saw little of Shepard over the following week while the quarians were on board. Her schedule was busier even than before. In addition to all of the daily tasks, she also now had to deal with constant meetings with the quarian admirals. She ate little and slept less. Every time he saw her, she appeared more and more stressed. She apologized for benching him when they went on board the geth dreadnought but he understood. He had never fought geth and she, Garrus, and Tali had faced them many times before. 

When he came into the mess hall to find Garrus and Tali talking to a geth, his steps faltered until he saw a piece of N7 armor over the hole in the geth’s platform and realized that it must be Legion. The geth turned its odd head and fixed its gaze on him and he saw the flaps over its…eye…move. “Creator Zorah, who is that?” it asked.

Tali turned to look at him and said, “Oh, that’s Kolyat. He’s Thane’s son.”

“We were unaware that Thane Krios has a son,” Legion said. “Welcome, Kolyat Krios. We are Legion.”

“Had a son,” Tali corrected sadly. “Thane is dead.”

Kolyat realized that all of the people standing there now had known his father in a way that he himself had not. He was hesitant to approach them as they all had a shared history and he’d only met Tali once before this but she waved him over as Legion said, “We did not know that Thane Krios had become nonfunctional. We are…sorry.”

“Thank you, Legion,” Tali said. “Come on, Kolyat. Have a seat. We were just reminiscing about our time together on the Collector mission.”

Legion said, “We have stored data from that time period that we can share with you if you wish. This platform contains a recording device and many of the files include recordings of your father.”

“I…thank you, Legion,” he said uncertainly. “I would like that, I think.”

He stayed with them and listened to their stories until Tali excused herself, saying that she needed to return to the war room. Garrus nodded and muttered something about calibrations and Legion activated his omni-tool. A moment later, there was a ping on Kolyat’s and he thanked the geth again before retreating to the Life Support room to view the files.

Most of the recordings that Legion had sent him were of battles they’d fought together. There weren’t many as the geth had joined the crew just before the Collectors had attacked the ship but the footage that he did have was illuminating. He was amazed that they’d compared him at all favorably to his father after seeing Thane in action. He knew that he wasn’t that good. There was a confidence about him that Kol could only hope to emulate. What he could give, however, was the same unwavering support that Thane had offered to her and which Garrus still gave.

EDI said, “Officer Krios, I have taken the liberty of sending additional files from my own storage to you. Some of them are from Shepard’s helmet cam but others are my own recordings. Many are interactions here on the ship. Some are private, but I believe that these are things that he would want me to share with you.”

“Thanks, EDI,” he said and accessed the files she’d sent. He transferred the ones from Legion to his home computer on the Citadel in order to make room for the new ones. As she’d said, there were recordings from most of the major fights, including the one where they’d recruited Thane. He was amazed at both his father’s speed and agility and the changes he saw in him over the course of the mission. He was able to see and begin to understand how his father had gone from the cold, distant man he’d known for most of his life to the warm, open one he’d become. Most of the transformation, he discovered, was due to the influence of Shepard and her crew. Some, he was surprised to learn, was because of him.

He hesitated before watching the vids of some of Shepard’s conversations with Thane but decided that EDI wouldn’t send him anything that violated Shepard’s privacy and that Thane wouldn’t mind even if it weren’t too late for him to care. He heard the affection and anguish in Thane’s voice as he talked about Irikah and Kolyat himself and the regret as he relayed the memories of times that he had pushed Kolyat aside. “He did care about us,” he said softly.

EDI said, “He kept a holo of you and your mother on his omni-tool and looked at it often. He was proud of the work you were doing in C-Sec.”

“Thank you for this, EDI,” he said.

___

Shepard found Kolyat meditating at the table where Thane had sat and, for a moment, was hit with a sense of déjà vu so strong that her steps faltered. He turned his head when she came in, something that Thane had never needed to do as he could identify the entrant before they had come through the doors. His lips quirked up and he said, “Hello, Commander.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “Shepard. I get formality enough from everyone else. I don’t need it from my crew and especially not from my friends. I thought we’d gotten past that.”

He shrugged and said, “Come on in.”

She took a seat at the table across from him but stood up again. It was too similar and yet too different. Instead, she leaned back against the window and said, “The geth are a part of the war now, which means that you need to know how to fight them. Garrus, Tali, and I have spoken and I’ve decided that you and Tali are going to accompany me on this next mission. Tali’s the best there is against geth so, if something happens, she and I can handle it. You can learn from her. We have to go rescue one of the admirals who was shot down on Rannoch. I’m sending you a packet with what we know about fighting geth—which is quite a lot, actually—and the different types we may encounter. Pay close attention to the hunters and the prime units. You handled yourself with the atlas. I think you can do so with a prime. If you can’t, though, get out of the way and let Tali and me deal with it.”

“Understood,” he said as his omni-tool pinged again. 

She crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Our objective is to save Admiral Koris. He’s the only one of these admirals with an iota of sense aside from Tali and the only other one who doesn’t favor all-out destruction of the geth. If we are to have a chance of brokering any type of peace or cease-fire between the quarians and geth, we need him. If we can save his men as well, that’s a bonus but he is our primary objective. If you can’t handle leaving people behind, say so now and I’ll take Garrus instead.”

He nodded and said, “I understand, Shepard. Are you all right?”

She sighed and rubbed her temples. “Just once, I’d like to ask someone for help in this war without having to solve centuries old dilemmas to get it. How much time did we lose on Tuchanka? How much more will we lose on Rannoch? I tried to tell them not to go to war with the geth but they didn’t listen. I hate these people, Kolyat. Don’t get me wrong. I love Tali like a sister. I’ve met a few others that I liked and respected. But, for the most part, they’re obsessive, blood-thirsty, entitled bosh’tets. 

“They almost killed us on that dreadnought and with one of their own admirals on board to boot! That didn’t stop them. They didn’t care that Tali would go down with it. They didn’t care that Garrus and I would go down with it and then where would the war effort be? They don’t seem to understand that if we lose this war, it will be the Reapers who hold Rannoch. A homeworld doesn’t matter as much if you’re all dead. 

“I’m no more important than any other person in this galaxy but, tactically, I understand that if I die, Garrus is the only person who has a chance of stepping into my boots. I’m the one with the history, the contacts, the name, the Spectre status, the ship, and the crew to pull this together. We need to be finding the Catalyst, not trying to end a feud older than the Montagues and Capulets.”

He stood and came to her. When he pulled her into his arms, she resisted for a moment and then allowed herself to lean stiffly against him. His hands stroked her back as he rested his chin on her head. She’d never been this close to him while standing and only now realized just how tall he really was. Her eyes closed and she breathed in the newly-familiar, faintly musky scent of him. It was different but not unpleasant. Dry and somewhat sweet, it reminded her of the pet snake she’d had back on Mindoir as a child. Now, it had simply come to mean comfort in the same way that Garrus’ earthier, metallic scent made her think of acceptance and security and Liara’s deeper, sweet fragrance of friendship and welcome.

“Better?” he asked, drawing away so that he could look at her.

“Better,” she confirmed. “I should go. I need to check on the status of the mission. Can you be ready in an hour?”

“I can,” he said. 

“Good. Meet us in the shuttle bay.”

___

He really did move like Thane, she thought as he warped a geth’s shields and pulled another out of cover so that she could shoot it. His wasn’t the same controlled dance of death that her friend had mastered but one of barely leashed violence. He was Thane without the restraint. It meant that he wasn’t as effortless in his fighting but he made up for it with a straightforward approach that she could appreciate. He was brute force made elegant by his innate gracefulness. He moved with a speed that was difficult to follow and when he threw enemies out of their path they didn’t get up again. Geth rocket troopers, hunters, primes, it made no difference. Once he knew how to fight them, he cut through them like a force of nature. 

Tali hacked a prime and they sat back for a moment to catch their breath while the massive unit took care of the smaller ones. Tali said, “Keelah, Shepard, he’s good. And it’s a good thing, too, because you’re spending more time watching him than you are shooting.” 

Her tone was teasing and Shepard shook her head. “I am not,” she denied. “My kill count is almost as high as yours and that’s saying something with geth.”

Across the way, Kolyat pulled out a small canteen and drank deeply before tossing it over to her. She accepted it gratefully and mouthed a thanks to him. Beside her, she could hear Tali drinking through a port in her suit. A moment later, the prime fell and they rose again to take out the last of the geth and push forward. 

She tripped over a landmine and cursed as her shields flickered. They were difficult to see in the dark and she called out a warning. Kolyat’s barriers flared and she heard a click as Tali increased her shields. The mines weren’t particularly powerful, but the flames licking over her armor were uncomfortable. Kolyat offered to take the lead as his night vision was better and she allowed him to do so. He was cautious but confident as he led them through the night to the AA guns and she was impressed. He’d clearly paid attention in his training and was integrating into real-life combat situations with an ease that could only come from inherent talent and perfect memory.

She put Kolyat on the guns while she and Tali held back the geth. When the second one went down and Cortez moved in to shoot down the tower, she gave him an approving nod. “Good work. Is there anything you can’t do?” she asked.

“I only knew how to do that because we did something similar in training once,” he told her. “I’m a terrible hacker and pitiful at engineering. I can rig or disarm an explosive but I can’t deploy an overload to save my life. I’m not very good with heavy weapons, either.”

“How can you not be good with heavy weapons?” she asked as they jumped into the shuttle. “They’re point and shoot.”

“Remember the Cain?” Tali asked.

“I miss that gun,” she said wistfully. “The damn Alliance confiscated it with my Widow. Mushroom clouds, Kol. It made mushroom clouds. It was beautiful.”

Kolyat shook his head and said, “Only you, Shepard.”

Tali nudged him and whispered conspiratorially, “If you ever want to get her a present, go with scope mods, not candy and flowers. High-powered scope mods, preferably ones that let her see through smoke and walls.”

“Tali,” she said in an exasperated tone. The quarian meant well but she and Kolyat were just friends. She didn’t have time for a relationship and, despite his flirtation from before, he’d shown no indication that he wanted anything more from her. She didn’t want Tali scaring him away.

“What?” Tali asked innocently. “Your birthday is in a few months. I was just thinking he might want to get you something nice.”

“When is your birthday?” he asked.

“April eleventh,” she answered absently as they approached the crash site and she activated the turret gun mounted inside the shuttle. Her birthday meant little to her, especially after missing two years of her life had made her older than she felt and then war had caught her back up, but her crew had surprised her in previous years by making an effort to do something special. Tali had baked her a cake last year and it was amazingly good for someone who couldn’t eat her food and had no idea how it was supposed to taste.

She cast a look at Kolyat when Koris agreed to leave his fallen men behind but, aside from a troubled flicker of his brow ridges, he didn’t comment. She couldn’t begrudge him the expression or the emotion behind it. Leaving a man behind went against everything in her nature. It was only the almost absolute certainty that they hadn’t survived that made it bearable to fly away with the admiral safely ensconced in the shuttle.

\---

Later that night, she went down to the crew deck in search of something to eat. She’d missed every meal that day and since her nightmares seemed determined to keep her awake, she figured she might as well get some form of sustenance. They had a busy day planned and she needed to be on top of her game. She, Legion, Garrus, and Tali were going back to Rannoch to take out the Reaper signal. Her mind raced with ways to try to convince the quarians to stop fighting. After seeing the things that Legion had shown her within the geth consensus, she knew that the geth would be amenable to peace if the “creators” would simply stop fighting them. There was no reason that the two couldn’t share the planet if they chose to do so. The quarians just had to stop being so damn stubborn. She had spent hours ensconced in the conference room with Tali and Koris trying to figure out a way to convince their people to stop their hostilities. They’d come up empty-handed so far.

Her gaze raked the cooling unit and settled on a pan of lasagna that Gardener had put away for her with her name written in large letters. No one would take her food. They all knew how rare a decent meal was for her. She reached in to take it out and a solid body curved over her. “Shepard,” he all but purred in her ear. She jumped and her head banged against the edge of one of the shelves. A turquoise hand plucked out a purple fruit and withdrew. 

“Damn it, Kol,” she muttered, pulling the pan out and rubbing the back of her head with her free hand. “If you thought I was due for another head injury, you could have just waited a few days, I’m sure…” she trailed off as she turned and saw him leaning against the counter with a smug look on his face. He was shirtless and dressed only in a pair of loose, dark pants that hung on his hipbones and accentuated the vee of muscle there that, on a human, looked good but was absolutely delicious on a drell with their denser musculature. 

Her eyes roved over his bare shoulders and chest, drinking in the sight of him. The pattern of black scales on his face and neck continued over his body and wrapped around him like a tiger’s stripes. He was clearly in shape and she couldn’t stop the involuntary dart of her tongue over her lips as her brain helpfully supplied her with the image of herself on her knees, following those stripes over his thickly-muscled chest (no nipples, interesting), down his well-defined abdomen (they have navels, too), and lower to their inevitable conclusion. She’d always thought drell attractive, but damn, he was a god. He grinned as if reading her thoughts and his teeth flashed white in the stark lighting as he bit into the strange fruit like an apple. 

“Like what you see?” he asked a long moment later when she still had not moved. He knew exactly what he was doing to her, damn him. He reached past her and closed the cooling unit and she felt his breath on her bare shoulder. The problem was that she didn’t know if he was simply flirting for the sake of it or because he genuinely wanted her. He could have any woman he wanted. Drell men were the male version of the asari. Everyone wanted them. 

Why should she think herself any less than anyone else? she asked herself. She was Commander Shepard, after all. She killed Reapers for a living. She wasn’t going to be thrown by a cocky, twenty-something year old cop even if he was Adonis made flesh. At the very least, she’d make him stammer like Vega. She turned and placed the pan in the heating unit and then faced him again. This time, her look at him was deliberate and, while she was certainly no sex goddess with all of her awkwardness and patchwork of scars and dull features in comparison to his, she was confident and confidence was damn sexy no matter what species one was. She threw every bit of the confidence that she’d taken with her through countless battles into the—hopefully—smoldering gaze she threw at him. 

It must have worked because she caught the quick blink of his inner eyelids before he recovered his composure and looked her up and down in a way that made her feel naked even in the camisole and shorts she wore. She said, “Do you know what the difference is between you and me, Kol? I don’t have to resort to cheesy pickup lines.”

“Oh?” he asked, raising his brows and propping the heels of his hands against the countertop. “What do you use, then?” he asked, playing along.

She took the two steps across the narrow galley and looked up at him. “Commander Shepard, Spectre.”

“That is good, Shepard. I’ll give you that. But you’re forgetting something I have in my favor,” he said.

“Do tell,” she said without moving back from him.

He lowered his head and murmured against her ear, “This voice,” he answered in a lower pitch that went straight to her core. He purred and a tremor ran through her. “Cold, Shepard?” he chuckled.

“You offering to warm me up, Krios?” she asked in a breathy voice that didn’t sound like her own. 

Before he could answer, they heard a swish as the doors to the main battery opened and Garrus’ armored tread announced his approach. She jumped back and Kolyat gave her a knowing grin as she turned and removed her lasagna from the heating unit. “Maybe later,” he purred in her ear before nonchalantly sauntering off, taking another bite of his fruit.

“Hey Shepard,” Garrus said, unaware of what he’d just interrupted. “Can’t sleep?”

“No,” she said. “Figured I might as well eat while I have time.” 

“I’d had the same thought,” he told her. “Would you mind some company?”

She cast a look in the direction of the closed Life Support door. That moment was over. “Come on,” she said and took a seat at the table. 

Liara came out of her cabin, rubbing her eyes, and blinked at them. “I thought I heard voices out here,” she said. “Can’t sleep?”

A moment later, the hum of the elevator announced Tali’s arrival and Shepard sighed inwardly. Apparently she wasn’t the only one whose nerves were on edge. She said, “Since you’re all here, I guess we might as well discuss our plan for tomorrow.”

“No,” Tali groaned. “We haven’t all been together in years! Take a few hours off, Shepard. We’ve gone over this so many times we can do it in our sleep. You know it’s all going to go to hell five minutes off the shuttle anyway.”

“All right,” she conceded. Tali was right. They were as prepared as they were going to get and, regardless of how tomorrow turned out, this was likely their last time together until after the war. If they won, Tali would stay on Rannoch to help her people in their newly reclaimed home. If they lost, then they’d either be dead or Tali would stay with her people to help in their recovery. Either way, this was probably her last night on the Normandy with them for a long time and she’d barely had a moment to spare for the friend that was like a sister to her.


	6. Chapter 6

They talked late into the night, remembering battles fought and won, friends lost, the historical events to which they’d been central. There was laughter and there were tears. Shepard looked around the little group. This was her core, her family, the people who’d stood by her through thick and thin. Garrus had been by her side through it all. Tali had come later with the Collectors and this war but she had come. Liara hadn’t joined her before but she was the reason that Shepard was sitting there now and she’d given her all of the support that she could while trying to make things right for the person who’d risked everything to help her. They were the best friends she’d ever had and she loved each of them from the bottom of her heart. She wished that Tali would stay. It wouldn’t feel right without her there at the end. 

Tali yawned mid-sentence and the sound triggered one of her own as the quarian leaned over and rested her head against Shepard’s shoulder. Garrus looked at Shepard and shook his head. “Humans are strange,” he muttered. “Why do you yawn when someone else does? And did you just yawn when I said the word yawn? Huh, this could be fun.” 

“You’re evil,” she said as another cracked her jaw. 

“Tired, Commander?” he asked with a wicked glint in his eye. “You sure are…yawning a lot.”

“Quit picking on her, Garrus,” Tali said around a yawn of her own.

“You do it, too?” he asked. “Oh, yeah, I’m definitely storing this away for later.”

“Pickles,” Shepard said threateningly. “Pickles everywhere.”

“What?” Liara asked as Tali burst into laughter. 

“Pickles are a human food,” Shepard explained as Garrus shuddered theatrically. “I started craving them after I was brought back, so I found this place on the Citadel that sold them and ordered a case of them. Apparently, they smell like a turian delicacy that Garrus just can’t resist. I had told Gardener that if anybody touched my damn pickles, they would spend the next week scrubbing decks. So instead of just asking for some, Garrus decided to sneak down into the cargo bay and steal a jar.”

Tali picked up the story then. “I’m in the engineering room trying to figure out a problem with the drive core when I hear a crash from the cargo bay. I thought Grunt was in there throwing moving things around again or maybe Jack was having a temper tantrum and Shepard was really tired because they’d just come back from the Collector ship a few hours before, so I decided to go check it out and try to fix the problem. I went into the cargo bay and saw Grunt rolling around on the floor, laughing his bosh’tet ass off while Garrus was pawing at his tongue and saying, ‘Ow, ow, ow’ because his talons were sharp and he wasn’t wearing his gloves. Apparently, he’s allergic to pickles. Between them and the scratches that just got the juice in deeper, his tongue and mandibles were swollen for two days and he couldn’t talk. It was the funniest thing because he just kept trying and none of our translators could understand him so no one had a clue what he was saying.”

“Laugh it up,” Garrus grumbled good-naturedly as Liara laughed from behind her hand.

“I hadn’t heard that one,” she said.

Tali said, “The best part was that Shepard was so pissed that he broke the jar after only eating one of them that she made him scrub the decks after he got out of the med bay anyway!”

“Worth it,” Garrus said. “They tasted like my favorite fruit.”

“Your fruit tastes like pickles?” Shepard asked. “Gross. Fruit is supposed to be sweet.”

Liara said, “You say that, but everyone tells me your tomatoes are a fruit and they aren’t sweet.”

“They’re delicious, though,” Shepard said. “Damn it, now I want pickles.”

Garrus groaned and dropped his head on the table as Tali laid her head back on Shepard’s shoulder. “We’ve had some good times on this ship, haven’t we?” Tali asked.

“Yeah,” Shepard agreed. “We have.”

“Best times of my life,” Garrus said, turning his head to look at them.

“Without a doubt,” Liara agreed. “I just wish I’d been here…”

“It’s all right,” Shepard told her. “You were doing something important. And you’re here now. We’re all here now.”

“Except Wrex,” Tali said. “I really wish he had stayed. I’d have liked to see him. I did notice Kaidan is back. When did that happen?”

“After the coup,” Shepard answered.

“Has he gotten over his suspicion of you?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Shepard said on a sigh. “We talked after we rescued Jacob and he met the scientists there. Garrus says he doesn’t know what to do with shades of gray. Kaidan can’t even see them.”

“And yet he’s still following you around like a…what is it, tiny kitten?” Garrus said.

“Puppy dog,” Shepard said. 

“If it's a problem, why don’t you just send him back to the Alliance?” Liara asked.

Shepard raked a hand through her hair. “It isn’t that simple. At this point, I’d have to justify reassigning him and I can’t. He outranks me and he's done nothing wrong. His doubt is just annoying.”

“He only outranks you because you turned down the promotion Admirals Anderson and Hackett offered you,” Liara pointed out.

“I don’t need a promotion,” Shepard said. “I don’t plan to remain with the Alliance after the war anyway. A promotion comes with a contract extension. A big one.”

“What are you going to do?” Tali asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I may stay a Spectre and just work for the Council. Or maybe I’ll just retire altogether.”

Tali said, “Well, you’ll have a room all your own at my house on Rannoch, Shepard. You could just move in with me. We can be little old ladies together.” 

“Rannoch is beautiful,” Shepard mused, “but I don’t think Kal’Reegar would appreciate that.” She knew she’d said the wrong thing as soon as Tali stiffened and Garrus pointedly shook his head. “Oh, shit, Tali. I’m sorry.”

Tali said sadly, “Some of our people decided not to participate in the war with the geth. They said that we were needed in the fight against the Reapers. Reegar took a squad to Palaven to help the turians. We just got word last week that he and his entire squad were killed guarding a comm tower that was responsible for relaying critical mission information to the Hierarchy.”

“He was a hero, Tali,” Garrus said gently. “He held the tower long enough for one of our squads to get there. The intel we got through that comm tower gave us time to evacuate several cities that we hadn’t expected to be in their sights. Everyone in those cities would have died if it weren’t for Kal’Reegar.”

“Thanks, Garrus,” Tali said as Shepard put an arm around her and a pall fell over the group.

“I really liked Reegar,” Shepard said. “He was a good man and a good soldier. I’d have been proud to call him friend.” Kal’Reegar had been one of the very few quarians outside of Tali that Shepard had actually liked. She’d only met him twice but it was enough to make it clear that he was absolutely devoted to Tali. Still, she wasn’t surprised that he’d stood up to his government and gone where he felt the most needed. He wasn’t the type of man to blindly follow a cause he didn’t believe in.

“Yes, he was,” Tali agreed. “This damn war.”

“This damn war,” Garrus, Liara, and Shepard echoed.

“So, about that room…can I bring Pip and my fish tank?” Shepard asked, drawing a wet-sounding laugh from Tali.

“Only if you bring your VI, too,” Tali said. “Dead fish stink and I won’t have filters to block the smell.”

“Deal,” Shepard said.

“I’ll make sure you have a good view,” Tali promised. “And, don’t worry, the rest of you will have a room, too. Liara’s will have a bank of terminals and Garrus’ will have a giant gun. I’m going to paint pyjaks all over Wrex’ walls.”

“Maybe give Wrex his own apartment,” Garrus said. “You think dead fish stink. You didn’t have to share the shuttle bay with him. Besides, he snores.”


	7. Chapter 7

Kolyat was slowly going crazy. Shepard, Garrus, Tali, and Legion had been down on the planet for hours while he was stuck on the ship and now they were saying the Reaper signal was an actual Reaper and Shepard was taking it on alone on foot. He paced the Life Support room. He’d been on the bridge but Joker had kicked him out, claiming he was giving him a headache. He’d tried to sit in the mess hall with the others where EDI was playing the feed from the mission, but sitting by and listening just made him feel more helpless and he felt like he was giving too much away to the crew. 

“Any word?” he asked EDI.

“The fleet has fired the first volley,” EDI answered. “The Reaper went down but it is up again and has progressed closer to the commander’s location.”

Was it just him or did the AI sound worried? he wondered. The AI couldn’t worry, could she? If she was, that was bad. “Play the feed,” he said. 

“Come on, you big behemoth mother fucker,” Shepard’s muttered voice poured into the room like a challenge. “That’s it, right there. Just a little longer. There! Fire!” The explosions that followed were almost deafening and EDI quickly adjusted the volume to compensate. It sounded like all of the cannons in the galaxy had fired simultaneously. There was no way the thing could survive a barrage like that. He relaxed slightly until he heard her groan. 

“Damn it! Why won’t this thing just stay down already?” Her breath came in quick gasps that told him she was running as the Reaper roared in the background. “Come on, asshole! Try to hit me this time!” she taunted. A moment later, she was running again and then she laughed. She seemed to have forgotten that her comm link was open, or perhaps, she was too close to the face of death to care. There was a high-pitched beep that announced that the signal had locked and the barrage began once more. This time, the Reaper was close enough that he heard it fall. She gave several deep pants that made him picture her bent forward with her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. He could all but see her heart racing in her chest. “Fuck,” she groaned. He heard booms like a giant’s feet and then genuine fear crept into her voice for the first time since he’d known her. “Oh, shit.”

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

EDI definitely sounded worried now as she said, “The Reaper has closed in on Shepard’s location. Given its proximity and her position, there is a less than five percent chance she will be able to avoid the laser.”

Shepard had apparently come to the same conclusion because she whispered, “Sorry, guys,” before shouting, “All right, you son of a bitch! Let’s dance!”

Even with perfect memory, he later struggled to determine the series of events that followed. Shepard shouted, the Reaper roared as if in response, there was a sound like the ground itself was breaking apart, and then came the beep of the targeting laser. The fleet had been waiting, and almost instantly, they poured everything they had into the final salvo. Kolyat felt the Normandy herself snarl around him like a living predator protecting her mistress as the Thanix cannon added its power to the cannonade. The thunderous crash of the Reaper reverberated through the room and Kolyat held his breath. 

“The Reaper is down. I repeat, the Reaper is down!” Shepard’s voice had never sounded so beautiful. He could hear the joy, victory, relief, and the waver of exhaustion and the massive adrenaline dump she had to have experienced. It was the voice of a person who was alive when she had fully expected not to be only moments before and he felt a wave of pride flow through him. She hadn’t run. She’d held her ground. She was, without a doubt, both the bravest and most foolish woman he’d ever met. A cold tide of fear followed the thought, and in that moment, he knew with unnerving certainty that he was going to lose her.

A triumphant cry resounded through the ship and he walked out of the Life Support room to find the crew gathered in the mess hall in the throes of celebration. The engineers were embracing each other as Gardner slapped Vega on the back. Liara had slumped in a chair beside Dr. Chakwas and they were leaning against each other’s shoulders with a look of intense relief. Two people he knew by sight though not by name had their fists in the air and several others were clapping and shouting Shepard’s name. Across the hall, Kaidan let out a whoop of excitement. Liara grinned widely at him and he returned it. EDI cut the feed, and after a few more minutes of celebration, they returned to their posts. It was, after all, not the first time she had killed a Reaper. 

EDI announced that the commander was on deck a few hours later and Kolyat went out to wait for the elevator. She would be hungry after the mission and he knew that Gardner had already cooked up a pot of her favorite soup as, after a fight that long, she would be too tired to eat anything else. He wasn’t concerned when it took some time. She would go first to her cabin to shower and change into her uniform and then down to the comm room to brief the admiral. She’d probably stop to talk to Joker and would likely have numerous members of the crew stop her as well. He was patient. He would wait.

When an hour passed and she hadn’t arrived, he began to grow concerned. He didn’t want to be so blatant as to ask EDI where she was. The briefing could have taken more time than expected or she might have returned to her cabin and fallen asleep. The thing that made his gut clench, though, was that neither Garrus nor Legion had come down and neither had Tali. Shepard had mentioned that the quarian planned on remaining on Rannoch, but he had thought that she would at least come down and say goodbye to her friends before departing. Of course! he thought. Shepard was probably reviewing the mission with Tali and probably overseeing the departure of the quarian admirals. They would need to retrieve their belongings from the ship. 

He was considering getting Gardner to make a bowl for him to carry up to her cabin when the elevator began to hum. He decided that if she wasn’t in there, he’d inquire as to her location, and if she wasn’t otherwise occupied, he’d take the food to her. She had to be exhausted and he knew that when the adrenaline wore off, she was going to be dead on her feet. She needed to eat and rest, but knowing her, she would eschew food for a few hours of sleep. She’d begun to lose weight recently and he was concerned over the way her uniform seemed to have grown slightly too large for her frame. She didn’t have any fat to lose, which meant that her body was beginning to consume muscle faster than she could put it on. Given the level of her activity and the rigorousness of the exercise program that she followed every day that they were not actively out on missions—and some when they were—that was concerning.

The elevator doors opened to reveal Garrus. The turian’s mandibles were slack and there was a vacant look of shock in his eyes. They glanced over Kolyat but did not see him. Kol heard the mourning keen of his subvocals as he stepped off of the elevator. The sound made his heart race in his chest. Surely, nothing had happened to Shepard. He called after Garrus, but the turian didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, he stood indecisively beside the mess hall for a moment before going to Liara’s office. The asari opened the door and listened as Garrus said something to her. Kolyat saw her face fall and then her arms came up to embrace Garrus. The turian all but crumpled into her and they collapsed onto their knees together as the doors closed.

“EDI,” Kolyat asked in a tight voice, “is Shepard all right?”

“Shepard is alive and uninjured,” EDI answered. “She is currently in her cabin.”

“What happened down there?” he asked.

EDI’s voice could be translated as nothing less than grieving as she said, “Once the Reaper was down, Legion discovered that it was able to upload the upgrades to the geth that allowed it true sentience. Legion requested permission from Shepard to do so. The geth had ceased fighting and the quarians continued to fire upon them. Shepard instructed it to upload the code and Tali to call off the Fleet. Tali attempted to do so, but Admiral Han’Gerrel belayed the order despite the geth’s nonresistance. Legion had to sacrifice itself in order to disseminate the code and chose to do so. When the geth came back online, they acted in order to defend themselves against the quarians’ continued attack. The Migrant Fleet was destroyed in its entirety, including the civilian liveships. Faced with the destruction of her people, Tali chose to end her life. Shepard attempted to save her but was unable to do so.”

“Tali and Legion are dead?” he asked, trying to process what he had heard. 

“Yes,” EDI said simply. 

“Shit,” he muttered, dropping his head into his hands. “Is Shepard alone?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going up there,” he said.

“She has ordered that she not be disturbed,” EDI informed him. 

“I don’t care what she ordered,” Kolyat said as he strode to the elevator and activated the control for her deck. “When my father died, she refused to leave me alone with my grief. I will not leave her alone with hers.” EDI didn’t respond, but the elevator opened on Shepard’s floor. The light on the lock glowed steadily red, denying him entrance. He knocked on the door but received no response. “Either open the door or I’ll find a way in through the vents.”

The light remained red for a moment before flickering to green and the door opened. The cabin was empty, but he heard the sound of the shower running in the head and saw her armor scattered between the doors. He knocked on the door and said, “Shepard?”

“Go away,” she said miserably. Her voice was muffled and he pictured her on the floor with her head on her knees. 

“No,” he said and keyed the door open. If she was naked, he just wouldn’t look. If she was handling it, he would leave. She wasn’t, though. She was sitting on the floor as he’d imagined her with the water pounding down on her, plastering her undersuit to her skin. She muttered something to him without raising her head and he quickly stripped off his jacket and went to her without hesitation. She lashed out at him when he joined her on the floor, but it was weak and he disregarded the blow. She snarled at him to go away again, but instead he pulled her to him, ignoring the way that she stiffened and pushed against him. Then her fists were raining blows on his chest as she shouted and railed at him to leave her alone. He let her rage and, after a few minutes, the barrage slowed and then stopped.

“She’s dead!” she finally shouted into his chest. “Tali’s dead and it’s my fault! I killed her! I killed her!”


	8. Chapter 8

Kolyat had no idea what to say to comfort Shepard, so he said nothing and simply held her. He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t her fault but knew that she wouldn’t believe him. He wanted to tell her that Tali’s decision was a choice, but that wouldn’t matter to her right now. There were no words that could ease her pain, so he didn’t give her empty ones. He sat under the hot spray while it soaked through his loose cotton off-duty pants and held her against him as her body shook with the force of the wracking sobs that tore from her like each one was being ripped from the depths of her soul. At one point, she pulled away from him and scrambled over to the toilet. There was nothing in her stomach to lose, so she simply heaved as her body itself tried to reject what her mind, heart, and spirit could not accept. 

She crawled weakly back to him and collapsed onto the floor. He stood and lifted her up into a standing position in front of him. She stared bleakly at the wall and didn’t resist as he removed the sodden clothing that clung to her body and maneuvered her under the spray again. It took a moment for him to decipher the uses of the various bottles of scented cleansers that sat in a rack in the corner, but fortunately, they came with directions. 

He kept his touch as impersonal as he could while he used the soap to clean the grime of battle from her body. She had gone somewhere in her mind and he knew that she was reliving those moments on that alien planet when she had unintentionally sentenced an entire race, including one of her closest friends, to death. He wondered how Tali had done it and what Shepard had done to try to save her but dared not ask. EDI would answer his questions later. Now, his focus was on bringing Shepard back rather than driving her deeper. He didn’t know if humans could become disconnected, but he was determined not to allow it to happen to Shepard. 

She didn’t react to his fingers gently scrubbing the shampoo into her hair and scalp and he hoped that he was doing it correctly. He’d never seen a human washing their hair before and didn’t know if it was acceptable for someone else to do it for them. He knew that a turian’s fringe was considered intensely personal and that touching it without consent was tantamount to groping them as it contained erogenous zones. Asari simply didn’t like for their crest to be touched by most people. Shepard had never protested when he’d touched her hair, though, and hadn’t reacted like it was a sexual area, so he thought it probably didn’t have the same connotations. He rinsed it carefully before applying the conditioning cream to it and rinsing that as well. 

When she was clean, he turned off the water and found a towel with which to dry her. Her compliance was almost childlike and her vulnerability was painful to witness. This broken creature of grief and despair was not his Shepard. He found another towel and turned away from her to strip quickly before drying his scales and wrapping it around his waist. He wrapped her in her own and swept her into his arms to carry her into the cabin. Still, she didn’t react. 

She stood where he put her while he rummaged through drawers to locate the garments she seemed to prefer for sleeping. He found several items that he didn’t understand the use for and finally said, “EDI, what does she wear?”

The AI directed him to the proper drawers and explained the concept of underwear while he figured out how to put it on her. She lifted her feet when he tapped her calves and allowed him to slide the garment up and did the same with her shorts. She obediently raised her arms so that he could put the camisole on her and, when she was dressed, allowed him to carry her to the bed. 

There was a knock at the door and EDI said, “Kolyat, I have asked Dr. Chakwas to retrieve some of your own clothing and to check on the commander. She is requesting entry.”

“Let her in,” he said. 

Dr. Chakwas came in with another pair of his loose pants and a soft shirt draped over her arm. In her hands, she carried a mug filled with a steaming liquid. Kolyat took the clothing and retreated into the head to dress while the doctor scanned Shepard. When he returned, she said to him, “She is in a state of shock brought on by the trauma she has suffered and exacerbated by exhaustion and a lack of proper nutrition. I have been expecting this for some time. She needs to be monitored.”

“I will stay with her,” he said. 

The doctor nodded and said, “If she hasn’t shown improvement in a day or two, we may need to consider seeking professional psychological help. However, I do not believe that will be necessary. She will rally soon. For now, she needs rest. If she can drink it without choking, try to get some of that broth into her. I mixed in a medication that will help her sleep. For the moment, Major Alenko has the deck.” She looked at Shepard and said, “Don’t worry. If he tries anything untoward, I will declare him unfit for duty.” The only sign that Shepard had heard her was a slight lessening of the tension that had formed at the corners of her mouth with the mention of the major. It was enough, for the moment, to tell him that she was still there and still cared.

“I will take care of her and keep you updated on her condition, Doctor,” he said. “Is there anything I should know about mourning in humans that could help?”

“We are all different,” the doctor said, “but there are stages that are universal. She will have to work through them, but they will take time. Do not be surprised if she exhibits anger or denial. She may insist that she is all right or try to deflect with humor. Physical contact can be helpful. The most important thing is that you are here for her and she knows that she is not alone.”

When the doctor left, Kolyat sat on the bed beside Shepard and tested the temperature of the broth. When he was sure that it wouldn’t burn her, he tried to give her the cup. She ignored it, so he maneuvered so that he was sitting against the headboard and her back rested against his chest so that he could ensure that she remained upright. When he brought the cup to her lips, she drank. It was a slow process as he didn’t want to give her too much, but he was patient and continued to offer it to her until she turned her head slightly away. He thought she’d had enough for the medication to take effect, so he placed it on the nightstand again and slipped out from behind her.

He laid them down and drew her head to his chest and covered her with the blanket. When they were situated, he asked EDI to turn the temperature up a few degrees as he didn’t want his body leaching her heat from her and to dim the lights so that the only illumination came from the fish tank on the in the bulkhead. When the room was dark, she whispered, “I keep seeing her fall. I tried to catch her. I caught Thane when he fell, but I was too far away and too slow to catch Tali. She fell and her hood fluttered around her face like wings on a bird that refused to fly. She was so beautiful, Kol. I never knew that. She was beautiful inside, but her face was so pretty. Her eyes, though, her eyes were so sad. She apologized. Her last words were, ‘I’m sorry.’ She shouldn’t have said that. I’m the one who…I killed her.”

“You didn’t kill her, Shepard,” he said, unable to hold it back any longer. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was,” she said. “Garrus knows. He hates me now. He loved her, you know. We all loved her. We loved her and I killed her.”

“He loves you, too,” Kol said. “He doesn’t hate you. He’s hurting, like you, but he doesn’t hate you.”

“He does,” she said. “In the shuttle, he said that he knew that I had my reasons for supporting the geth and he would try to respect them but that Tali’s choice was harder to accept. He said he always imagined that she had the face of an angel under the mask and he was right. He didn’t say anything to me after that.”

“You’ll go and talk to him tomorrow,” Kolyat said. “You’ll see that he doesn’t hate you. You’ll grieve together. For now, though, just sleep.”

“I can’t,” she said dully. “When I close my eyes, I watch her fall.”

His arms tightened around her as if he could protect her from herself and he brushed his lips across her hair. She tilted her face up and he froze as her mouth ghosted feather light across his. When he didn’t move, she grew bolder and pressed her lips more fully into him. His own parted reflexively when he felt her tongue slide across them and he groaned as thought fled and he returned the kiss. She tasted like the ocean and he realized that it was the salt of her tears. Her hands fisted in his shirt and she fitted herself against him as he cradled her head in his hand. The other found the hem of her camisole and slid beneath it to splay across her hot skin. She gasped his name and he breathed it in as she arched into him. 

It took every ounce of his self-control to draw back from her and tuck her head under his chin. He had wanted her for so long but this wasn’t the time or place. She was hurting and reaching out for anything that would distract her from the pain. If she’d come to him the night before, even the Reapers wouldn’t have been able to force him away, but this was different. He wouldn’t take advantage of her in this state. “Sleep, Shepard,” he said gently. “I’m here. I’ll keep the nightmares away.”


	9. Chapter 9

**TO:** “Thane’s Kid” Kolyat.Krios@normandysr2.xnet  
**FROM:** FltLT.Moreau@normandysr2.xnet  
**DATE:** 11.21.2186  
**SUBJECT:** Shepard—URGENT  
Shepard’s in trouble. A band of mercs attacked Ryuushi on the Strip. She sent me to get the crew, but they’ve scattered across the station. Use your damn C-Sec privileges and go help her. She’s tough, but these guys are something I’ve never seen before.  
Joker

 **TO:** FltLT.Moreau@normandysr2.xnet  
**FROM:** Kolyat.Krios@normandysr2.xnet  
**DATE:** 11.21.2186  
**SUBJECT:** Re: Shepard—URGENT  
10-4  
Kolyat Krios

 **TO:** “Shepard” Cdr.Shepard@normandysr2.xnet  
**FROM:** Kolyat.Krios@normandysr2.xnet  
**DATE:** 11.21.2186  
**SUBJECT:** Trouble  
I’ve tracked your omni-tool. I’m on my way. Answer your comm, damn it.

___

“Shepard!” Kolyat’s voice came over the comm when she answered.

“A little busy here,” she said as she directed a plasma ball at a merc hiding behind a crate. Not for the first time she wished she was a biotic. Her tech attacks recharged quickly for someone who also had the benefit of a gun, but the strange pistol she’d picked up was now out of ammo and she had to take out the mercs with only her omni-tool in order to search them for thermal clips.

“I have your location. I’m on my way,” he said.

“Stand down,” she said as she shot another ball of fire at a merc. “I’m fine.” The truth was that she wasn’t fine. She could use a little help. 

“Bullshit,” he said. “I hear gunfire in the background but none from you. Do you even have a weapon?”

“I have a pistol,” she said defensively. 

“Then why aren’t you using it?” he asked.

“I need to acquire more thermal clips,” she admitted, peering over the edge of the roof to ensure that the area was clear. “Going silent.”

She cloaked and slid down the ladder before kneeling to pat down a fallen mercenary behind a kiosk. She grinned triumphantly and slapped a new thermal clip into the pistol. A scraping sound alerted her to the presence of another target, and before her cloak ran out, she slipped around the side and grabbed him from behind with a hand over his mouth. Her omni-blade slid silently between his ribs before he could react and she took his spare ammunition as well.

Brooks was squawking at Kolyat over the comm, demanding to know who he was and insisting that he was endangering her by being on that frequency. Kol demanded to know who she was and Shepard whispered, “Kolyat, did Joker mention Brooks? Yeah? That’s her. She’s the one who alerted me to the threat. Brooks, Kolyat Krios. He’s the son of one of my former associates.”

“A kid?” Brooks exclaimed. “You’re trusting a kid?”

“He isn’t a kid, Brooks,” she said as she fired a shot at a merc and hacked a combat drone.

Brooks directed her and Shepard followed, taking out wave after wave of mercenaries. She was getting tired and she was pretty sure she’d broken at least two ribs and sprained her wrist and ankle. It wasn’t the worst set of injuries she’d ever gotten, but it was the worst she’d had while fighting an army alone. Kolyat’s offer of help was starting to look better by the minute. 

She should have saved some of the medigel for herself. Clearly, Brooks had had more than enough. By the time she rounded a corner into an empty car lot and saw Kolyat running toward a pair of mercenaries, she was in enough pain to be grateful for his presence. 

His fist took on a familiar blue glow and before she could step out and shoot the mercenaries whose backs were turned to her, he’d thrown them against a wall hard enough to crack their skulls. She watched as he leapt over a skycar with a grace that rivaled Thane’s and lowered her stolen pistol in relief. Some of the tension in him ebbed when he saw that she was relatively uninjured. “Rough day, Shepard?” he asked lightly.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “First, we need to focus on getting out of here.”

His lips quirked as she walked past him and she turned to see him eyeing her appreciatively. “Nice dress.” She cocked a brow at him and he cleared his throat. “Right. Getting out of here. Follow me. Did you know that sushi is a delicacy for drell? It’s one of the only meats we’ll eat. Too bad someone fell through their fish tank. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said firmly, but she couldn’t help but smile at this playful side of him. Now that he’d ascertained that she was all right, he seemed to find the whole situation entertaining. “You don’t have any medigel on you, do you?”

His eyes narrowed and he became instantly alert again. He scanned the area and made sure it was still clear before coming to her and checking her for injuries. She waved him off but accepted the medigel pack and slipped behind a skycar so that she could slather it over her ribs and wrist. He came around and knelt down to put a layer over her ankle before squeezing a small drop onto his turquoise thumb and brushing it gently over her cheek and forehead. “You had lacerations on your face,” he said, but his dark eyes were locked on her mouth and his thumb continued to brush against her skin even after the medigel had been transferred over it.

Heat leapt into her at his gaze but she shook it off. Her voice was husky when she said, “We still need to get out of here.” He nodded and stepped back and she was impressed by the transformation from…whatever he was to her…to soldier. Maybe they stood a chance here after all.

She grinned when he passed her the spare sniper rifle he'd brought and then faltered for a moment when she recognized the weapon. It wasn’t the Viper she’d given him. It was Thane’s. In an instant, she pictured all of the times that this rifle had fired alongside hers to take down Collectors, mercenaries, pirates, and anyone else who had been foolish enough to stand in their way. She shook the memories off and brought the rifle to her shoulder with silent thanks. It was almost like having her old friend at her back again. 

___

Kolyat heard the crack of the rifle as another mercenary dropped with a clean shot to the forehead. He warped one that was attempting to activate a drone and Shepard took the engineer down as soon as his shields dropped before turning her attention to a sniper who was attempting to line up a shot on her. He thought her exclamation sounded far too happy for the situation as he fired on yet another mercenary and saw him go down. 

He realized he'd never actually seen Commander Shepard fully in action. He'd heard his father's memories of her during the fight against the Collectors and he'd watched the helmet cam vids she sent him on occasion, including some from Garrus' point of view that actually showed her, and he’d seen her on Arrae and Rannoch, but those had been relatively minor fights with Garrus at her back as well. Seeing her like this was a completely different story. He had to struggle to keep his attention on the fight rather than just sitting back and watching her work.

Thane had been an artist. Shepard didn't have the same flair as his father, but she had one all her own. He knew that she was still in pain, but she didn't show it as she fought with all of the intensity that had brought her through countless impossible situations before. She didn't seem phased by the fact that she was in a dress and heels rather than armor and he thought that he'd never seen anything quite so balletic as Commander Shepard going to a knee and managing to somehow brace herself while simultaneously crossing her legs in a way that still preserved her modesty in the short leather skirt. The rifle, as always, looked natural in her hands in a way that made it clear that she was more accustomed to handling weapons than fancy silverware, though he could see her doing that with effortless grace as well.  
She was efficient, accurate, and fluid in her movements. Thane had told him about the time that she'd attempted to dance in a club on Omega and how uncoordinated she was. Kolyat thought now that she simply hadn't been trying to do the right dance. She needed a dance with power, purpose, energy, a dance where romance and violence spun hand in hand for she was elegance personified in this rapid-fire dance of death. 

They were joined by a krogan, one that could only be Wrex. He glanced over at Kolyat with a twisted grin and said, "Still picking up random whelps, I see. Good to know some things don't change," and then gave the creepiest laugh that Kolyat had ever heard. 

While Wrex and Shepard evaluated the machine gun the krogan had found on one of the mercs, Kol jumped up in the shuttle and looked around. There was no way that Bailey would have allowed one of his shuttles to be compromised like this. The C-Sec commander ran things tight and he'd been even more attentive since the attempted coup. Something wasn't adding up here. An explosion behind him drew his attention and Shepard waved him over to the sign behind which she and the krogan had taken cover. She passed Thane's sniper rifle back to him and said, "I think we've reached the spray and pray portion of tonight's event. Stay close."

He cocked a brow at her, unsure of whether to be offended or amused by her protectiveness. "I'm not a civilian, Shepard," he reminded her. "I've fought beside you before. I can handle mercenaries." 

She shrugged and said, "You're on my right this time. Wrex is on my left."

He nodded and they moved into the building where mercs were dropping from the ceiling like fleas off a varren. Wrex asked, "Shepard, we got a way out of here?"

To Kolyat's surprise, she was grinning as she answered, "Wrex, I'm a professional!"

"That's not a yes," the krogan grumbled.

"That's not a no!" She pointed out as she pulled the trigger and a rapid-fire stream of projectiles shot from the gun that should have been too large for her small frame. He shook his head at the banter as it continued and turned his attention to the four mercenaries that were trying to get closer to his position. He leaned out of cover and threw them back before turning his pistol on a fifth and then leaping over the counter he was behind to take new cover behind a display littered with shattered holo brochures. 

Joker came over the comm and let them know he was on his way with Brooks. The female's name made the scales on the back of his neck stand up and he ducked under a desk and quickly activated his omni-tool. 

**LOGIN:** Kolyat.Krios@csec.xnet  
**PASSWORD:** Encompassing2167  
[Welcome to csec.xnet, Officer Krios]  
RUN QUERY: Brooks, Maya Alliance  
[Your search has yielded no results. Please try a different query.]  
RUN QUERY: Brooks, M. Alliance; Brooks, Maya human; Brooks M. human  
[Your search has yielded no results. Please try a different query.]  
**LOGOUT**

 

 **TO:** “Cdr. Bailey” Armando-Owen.Bailey@csec.xnet  
**FROM:** Kolyat.Krios@normandysr2.xnet  
**DATE:** 11.21.2186  
**SUBJECT:** Silversun Strip  
I need all information on an Alliance Staff Analyst Maya Brooks immediately. I'll explain later. Trust me.  
Officer Krios

___

"Kol, you getting cold feet over there?" Shepard called out.

"Not at all," he responded coolly. "Simply gathering intel."

"What kind of intel?" she asked as she sent a fireball from her palm to a mercenary creeping up behind the desk.

His eyes cut to the remaining mercs and he threw a group of them back. "I'll fill you in later."

"Understood," she said. 

Joker arrived a few minutes later with a shuttle and Kolyat surreptitiously captured a still shot of the young soldier beside the pilot. 

___

 **TO:** “Cdr. Bailey” Armando-Owen.Bailey@csec.xnet  
**FROM:** Kolyat.Krios@normandysr2.xnet  
**DATE:** 11.21.2186  
**SUBJECT:** Sitrep  
Please find image of suspect attached.  
Officer Krios  
[Attachment: 032765.img]

 **TO:** "Krios" Kolyat.Krios@normandysr2.xnet  
**FROM:** Armando-Owen.Bailey@csec.xnet  
**DATE:** 11.21.2186  
**SUBJECT:** Re: Sitrep  
There is no Maya Brooks listed in any Alliance records, nor has one been cleared to be on the Citadel. What's going on, son?  
Bailey

 **TO:** “Cdr. Bailey” Armando-Owen.Bailey@csec.xnet  
**FROM:** Kolyat.Krios@normandysr2.xnet  
**DATE:** 11.21.2186  
**SUBJECT:** Re: Re: Sitrep  
The woman in the image is claiming to be an Alliance intel officer with information about a threat against Commander Shepard. The situation on the Strip is a part of it. Merc band, likely former Alliance soldiers, attacked the commander in Ryuushi and have pursued her across the back alleys of the Strip. Five mercenaries confiscated a C-Sec shuttle and responded to the alleged SA Brooks' request for C-Sec aid. The shuttle was disabled following impact from a krogan. Commander Shepard, Urdnot Wrex, Flt. Lt. Moroeau, "SA Brooks", and I are currently in a shuttle returning to Tiberius Towers. "SA Brooks" claims that Commander Shepard's communications have been compromised.  
I've attached an image of the pistol the commander picked up. None of us have seen anything like it.  
Officer Krios  
[Attachment: 032766.img]

 **TO:** "Krios" Kolyat.Krios@normandysr2.xnet  
**FROM:** Armando-Owen.Bailey@csec.xnet  
**DATE:** 11.21.2186  
**SUBJECT:** Re: Re: Re: Sitrep  
Well, damn. I think it's safe to assume that this Brooks is working with whoever's after the commander. She's currently your best lead to the perpetrator. I'll look into the theft of the shuttle and try to figure out who this merc band is. I suggest you keep your affiliation with us quiet for the moment. She'll likely come up with an excuse to keep C-Sec out of it, and if I know the Commander, she's going to want to handle this personally. I’ll leave this in your hands as long as you're up to it. I guarantee Vakarian's there and he can help if you get in over your head. In case the commander's comm system actually is compromised, I'll communicate with her through you. When I get anything new, I'll let you know.  
Cdr. Bailey

___

They arrived at the apartment and Kolyat pulled Shepard aside as soon as he could get her away from the gathering crowd. He explained what he and Bailey had found, and as they'd thought, she insisted on following through to personally find out who had sent an army of mercenaries after her. He saw her pull Liara, Garrus, and EDI to the side shortly thereafter and thought she was explaining the situation to them as well, though she kept the information from the others. 

_Smart_ , he thought. Liara was the Shadow Broker, Vakarian was a former C-Sec investigator himself, and EDI was the ship's AI and would be helping gather the intel. They were the only ones currently with a need to know and the ones guaranteed to be able to protect their reactions and prevent Brooks from suspecting that she'd been compromised. The rest would accept her because it seemed as though the Commander accepted her and that would make her even more comfortable.

"Good catch, Krios," Garrus said to him in a low voice as he walked up to the group in the bar area and leaned casually against the counter.

Unfortunately, Brooks ended up being the only one with both sufficient hacking skills and lack of tech that would allow entry into the arms dealer's safe room. Kolyat and Garrus exchanged a look, and while Kol wasn't as familiar with their subharmonic communications as his father had been, he thought the turian was humming something along the lines of "Convenient." Kol couldn't agree more.

It was decided that Kol would accompany the commander as her "date" for the evening. If all went well, he could not only provide backup for her but could possibly find enough incriminating evidence to warrant taking in the casino owner. He learned a few new things about Shepard during the party as well. First, she truly was a horrible dancer. Second, she was a terrible liar. Third, she could still become a professional gambler if she ever got tired of the business of saving the galaxy.

He'd been expecting Brooks to somehow warn Khan of their coming or wipe essential information. He hadn't expected her to kill him. He could see from the tightness around Shepard's eyes and mouth as she took in the sight of the dead man slumped in his chair that she hadn't expected the woman to go that far, either, or to get her hands that dirty. Brooks was much more conniving than they'd first realized. Her innocent, bumbling act was too good and she'd caught them off guard. He focused not on the distorted image on the screen but instead on the supposedly rattled female. There was a satisfaction about Brooks' smile when the perp said that he or she was going to take everything Shepard had and everything she was that sent a chill up his spine.

They returned to the apartment and Shepard set up a watch for the night before sending the others to bed in various locations around the apartment. EDI would be on guard throughout the night, but the others wanted to help as well, so Kolyat and Garrus ended up on watch together. Kolyat stood guard over Shepard's bedroom door while Garrus took the balcony overlooking most of the apartment and EDI monitored the bottom floor. 

The turian surprised him by saying, "You like her, don't you?"

"Shepard?" Kolyat asked, unsure of where he was going with the question. Garrus nodded once. "Yeah. She's, uh, she's an amazing woman. She has been a very good friend to me since I lost my father."

"Your dad was a good guy," Garrus said. "I know he did you and your mom wrong for a long time, but he was a good friend to me and to Shepard. He cared about you. When he talked about you, well, that was the only time the assassin dropped away and the person was fully open. You remind me a lot of him, or maybe of what he might have been like without the hanar. He'd have been proud of you today. You thought critically, you picked up on something the rest of us missed, you guarded Shepard and helped her get back here safely when the two of you were vastly outnumbered, and you kept your head."

"Thank you," Kolyat said, warming at his words. 

"That's why I'm going to tell you this," Garrus said seriously, turning his head just enough to confirm that Kolyat was paying attention. "Out of everyone here, I've fought by Shepard's side the longest. She's more than just a commander. She's my family. I've seen her lose people she cared about and I've seen her get her heart broken. She and Kaidan, in fact, have only just begun to mend their friendship. I don't think anyone here but maybe EDI knows just how deeply he cut her. She's been through too much to be expected to carry any more and yet this war just keeps pushing more and more onto her shoulders. You just better not hurt her. That's all I’m saying." 

"I have no intention of causing her pain," Kolyat assured him seriously.

"Good. I like you. I liked Thane. And it would upset Shepard if I killed you," he said. Kol couldn't tell if he was serious or not and his eyes flicked down to the long talons curled around the banister railing. He swallowed involuntarily and wondered if Shepard knew that her XO loved her.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

Shepard threw a party after the clone business was taken care of. Kolyat still couldn’t believe that she’d had a clone in the first place. He knew that she’d died and been brought back, but seeing two of her in the same place was further confirmation and, honestly, bizarre. Shepard had handled it, though. He’d expected her to have some residual reaction to it, but she’d shrugged it off as thoroughly as she did most things short of Tali’s death. She still blamed herself for that and when he found her looking around the boisterous crowd in the apartment with sadness in her eyes, he knew she was seeing the empty spaces where the lost members of her crew should have been.

He wanted her to be happy. He liked it when Shepard was happy. She’d been happy while they’d been chasing the clone through the Archives. He hadn’t ever seen that side of her. She’d been downright cheerful. He’d known she had a sense of humor, but he hadn’t seen it much since the war had started. It showed just how much of a toll it was taking on her that her idea of fun was chasing down a clone of herself that was trying to steal her life because it was only her life on the line rather than the whole galaxy. Or maybe that was just Shepard and would have been fun for her under any circumstances. Either way, he wanted to see her look like that again.

“You’re smiling,” she said in an accusing tone as he sauntered over to her.

“Yes,” he said.

“You never smile,” she informed him.

“I smile,” he argued.

“When?” she challenged, looking up at him.

Emboldened by the freely flowing alcohol he’d consumed, he bracketed her with his arms around her and his hands against the bar as he leaned in and trailed his nose up the side of her neck. “When I see you,” he said into her ear. Her quick intake of breath made his smile widen further. “Wanna dance, Shepard?”

“They’ve already made fun of me enough for one night,” she said with a laugh in her voice.

“You’ve just been doing the wrong kind of dancing,” he said, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her to him as he nipped her shoulder. 

She gasped sharply and slipped her arms around his neck. “Oh, yeah?” she asked. “And what kind of dance is that?”

“The kind that involves you and me naked and rolling around in your bed,” he answered.

Her eyes widened and her hips rolled almost imperceptibly against his, feeling his hardness through the leather of his pants. “Okay,” she said.

He let out a trill that he was sure Garrus would have heard and understood if he hadn’t been busy comparing whether Liara or Samara was bluer—Kolyat had them both beat on that one—and took her hand in his. She laughed somewhat nervously but followed him to the stairs where she promptly leapt onto his back. He caught her and took the stairs two at a time, calling another laugh from her. He registered a glimpse of Sam with EDI pushed up against the wall of the sitting room while EDI said something and Joker watched with a look of rapture on his face. He made a mental note to warn Samantha to have EDI destroy the vid Joker was recording before Shepard’s door opened and she ran her tongue up the back of his neck and over his frill. His knees went weak and he was afraid he was going to drop them both, but she slid down and pushed him onto his back on the bed.

She stalked up his body on her hands and knees before leaning down and pressing her lips to the side of his face. She surprised him when she said, “I’m sorry I hit you.”

“I’m not,” he told her, wrapping his arms around her waist and flipping them over. “You got my attention. The memory of you shouting my name and running after me, stalking up to me like an avenging angel, repeated itself over and over in my mind. That was why I messaged you the first time. I wanted you even then. I was just too angry and embarrassed to recognize it for what it was. Hell, it’s still embarrassing.” 

“I thought you were a kid,” she said. “The way Thane talked about you, I didn’t think you could be more than sixteen or seventeen.”

“Kahje has a longer year than most,” he told her. “We’re considered adults at twelve. In Galactic Standard years I’d be…” he tried to run the math in his head but her lips were on his neck, distracting him. “…Mid-twenties. Younger than you but not by much,” he eventually finished.

“I know,” she murmured without taking her mouth off of him. “I felt so guilty when I realized I was falling for you. It wasn’t until Mordin pointed out that numbers themselves don’t mean much in terms of age between species that I asked Thane how old you were compared to me.”

“Ah,” he said, “that explains a lot.” Thane had been far more accepting of his feelings toward Shepard than Kolyat had anticipated and had made sure to keep him informed of happenings on the Normandy that involved her. “He would message me when you were wounded and let me know that you were safe.”

“I miss him a lot,” she said, bringing her hands up to stroke along his spine, “but do you really want to talk about your father right now?”

“No,” he said. “In fact, I really don’t want to talk at all.” 

___

He kissed like an angel. A somewhat deviant angel, but an angel nonetheless. He propped on his elbows and framed her face in his hands, threading his fingers into her hair, as he bent his head and brought his full lips down to meet hers. His tongue was cooler and rougher than she’d expected and it caressed hers without hesitation. He kissed like he was trying to drink her in and everything else fell away as she lost herself in it. Her tongue danced over the surprisingly sharp edges of his teeth and tangled with his as she stroked the hard planes of his face and trailed her fingers over the velvety red ribbing of his throat. He groaned and she felt it in her fingertips. 

She’d wanted him for so long. It didn’t take much to spark a slow burn throughout her body as his hands began to roam down her neck and over her collarbone before sweeping down her chest and hooking her thigh up over his hip, bringing him into contact with her center. She moaned shamelessly into his mouth and thought she heard the bathroom door slam closed, but his teeth were scraping across her neck and she couldn’t bring herself to care. 

His body was heavy and solid against her and he didn’t resist as she pushed his jacket off of his shoulders and then helped her remove his shirt. His shimmering scales were smooth and cool against her hands and she felt the dense layers of muscle slide beneath the skin as he shifted to draw the strap of her dress down her shoulder and followed its path with teeth and lips and tongue. She sighed his name and he continued to kiss his way down her body, cupping her breasts in his hands and pressing her nipple up against the roof of his mouth. Her hands grasped his shoulders and she moved to help him strip her of the garment. 

His mouth continued its journey over her ribcage and down her abdomen, stopping to nip teasingly at her hipbone. Her hands fisted in the sheets as he dipped his head and licked up the inside of her thigh. He grinned up at her and very deliberately parted her folds with his tongue. She cried out as her back arched off the bed and she wondered where the hell he’d learned to do that or if drell females were just that similar. He knew just where to lick and where to nip, where to use pressure and where to go lightly. That cool tongue against her overheated center was driving her mad and then his fused fingers were trailing over her and pressing into her, stretching her slowly. “Oh, fuck, Kolyat!” she gasped as he nipped her thigh. 

“What do you want, Shepard?” he asked and his voice vibrated against her clit, sending jolts of pleasure spearing through her. 

“More,” she demanded. 

“More what?” he purred. “More of this?” he asked, sliding his tongue across her clit. “Or more of this?” he said, pressing his fingers deeper into her. She arched against him, crying out, and he chuckled. “Are you close, Shepard?”

“Gods, yes,” she answered, digging her heel into the mattress for leverage. His arm came down across her hips, holding her in place as his fingers began to work her in earnest. She felt herself drawing tighter and tighter until the scrape of his teeth over her nub as he curled his fingers inside of her broke through the last of her control and she shouted his name as she fell apart.

She recovered faster than he’d expected. She saw the surprise in his eyes when she flipped him onto his back and straddled him once more. It was her turn to explore him and she intended to do so fully. He hissed in a breath when she grazed her teeth over his frill and tilted his head back to allow her access to his throat. His hands tightened around her hips when she nipped at it but he didn’t protest. Her hands formed themselves over the hard musculature of his chest and ran down his sculpted abs. She was used to seeing men in good shape but with his glittering turquoise scales and the glistening onyx patterns that wrapped around his ribcage and seemed to point the way to his groin, he redefined male beauty for her. 

His abdomen tensed when she flicked her tongue into his shallow, flat navel and deftly unfastened his leather pants. His muscles flexed as he lifted his hips to allow her to draw him down and she sucked in a breath. “Damn, Kol, is that a Cain you’re packing or are you having fun?” she asked breathlessly when she saw him. 

He was shaped similarly enough to a human male that she didn’t have any doubt that they could make it work but, gods, he was _thick_. The head of him was slightly more angular and larger than a human and the base was rounded. Between that was a set of ridges like his frill in miniature and she ran a tentative finger over him. Those would either feel very, very good or very, very uncomfortable. They were more flexible than the ones on his face and she grinned down at him. Very good indeed.

He gave her a cocky smile and his teeth flashed as he said, “Glad you approve.”

“Oh, I definitely approve,” she told him as she bent her head and licked the length of him.

“Oh, goddess of oceans,” he hissed, throwing his head back and fisting his hand in her hair. She stroked her hands up his thighs, careful not to rub his tightly-fitting scales the wrong way, and took him fully into her mouth. He groaned loudly and his hips bucked. “Shepard!” 

He didn’t let her play long before he was tugging her up his body and rolling her beneath him again. He pushed her knees apart with his thigh and then she felt him nudge her entrance as he settled between them. His mouth crashed down onto hers, hard and possessive, as he pushed slowly into her with a series of shallow thrusts that left her all but whimpering into his mouth. Her legs wrapped around him, but he resisted her attempts to pull him into her and bit her lip gently before smoothing his tongue over it. “Easy, Shepard,” he whispered into her ear. “I’ll fuck you hard in a minute, but right now I want to feel you wrap around me.”

“Kolyat!” she gasped in surprise at his words and the velvet tone of them. 

“That’s it,” he praised and scraped his teeth over her ear. “Gods, I love hearing you call my name. I love feeling you writhe beneath me. You’re always so put-together. I love watching you fall apart, feeling you tremble in my arms. I love how hot and tight and wet you are around me and knowing that it’s for me.”

“Kol, please,” she moaned, rolling her hips in an attempt to draw him deeper as her nails raked across his shoulders and back. 

“Let go, Shepard,” he encouraged. “I want to feel you fall apart.” With that, he drove into her hard, seating himself inside of her, and her body bowed up into him. His teeth locked onto her shoulder and he thrust deep and hard and quick. Her head fell back and she watched, entranced, as his glittering scales sent shards of turquoise light dancing around the room, tinkling like bells in the air. He drove her higher and higher until she was sobbing his name and clinging to him for dear life while the ocean crashed around them. The waves rolled in, breaking over their bodies, and she shattered. A few more hard thrusts later and he followed her down.

She lay beneath him with her hands trailing over him, watching in fascination as his skin rippled like water. He winced and reached up to pull her hands away. “I don’t mind if you claw me open during sex,” he said into her neck, “but it’s a little hypersensitive after.” 

“Sorry,” she said. “I was just watching the water move.” He raised his head and looked down at her curiously. “I can see the galaxy in your eyes,” she informed him. “It’s really pretty. Did you get me high?”

“Oh, shit,” he said. “I thought you said you’d talked to Mordin.”

“I did,” she said absently, watching the galaxy swirl in the dark orbs of his eyes. “Mordin and I used to talk about a lot of things.”

“He didn’t warn you?” Kolyat asked. “About the venom?”

“Like a snake?” she asked.

“Not deadly,” he told her. “Just, uh…drell produce venom in our saliva and the oils in our skin. It, um, causes hallucinations. They make drinks with it. So, yeah. I got you high.”

She laughed and said, “I’d thought you could become addictive but I didn’t realize you were an actual drug.”

“You don’t mind?” he asked.

“Not at the moment,” she said. “Just don’t let me scratch you open. Your skin looks and feels like water right now.”

She reached past his shoulder and cupped one of the glimmering lights in her hand, watching it sparkle as it laughed. Kol cocked his head and gave an indulgent smile. “You’re kind of cute when you’re stoned,” he informed her.

“I’m Commander Shepard,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m never cute.”

He leaned down and kissed her soundly before saying, “Yeah, you are.”

“You taste like honeysuckle,” she said. “I think I’m going to kiss you every day.”

“I’m all right with that,” he told her.

___

Kolyat woke with Shepard's head pillowed on his chest and realized she'd finally slept without nightmares. A glance at the clock told him that, while he wanted to lie there with her all day, if they didn't get up and start rounding up the crew, they'd miss her self-imposed departure time. He rolled onto his side and ran a hand down her arm, wishing he didn't have to wake her up. She was so beautiful when she slept like this. All of the strain melted away and she looked younger and at peace. She was always beautiful to him, but there was something special about this, about knowing that she felt safe enough to let her guard fall around him, that he was the only one who got to see her this way. She napped on the shuttle with her head on his or Garrus' shoulders at times, but it was a light and restless sleep that came when she'd pushed her body past the limits of what it could endure on far too little food and rest and the shadows under her eyes never fully went away then. This was something he saw only when they were alone and his arms were around her.

His mind went back to the night before, replaying every moment as she'd writhed and bucked beneath him, calling his name like a benediction. He could feel her heat surrounding him and forced himself out of the memory before he gave in to temptation and buried himself within her again. If he did that, they wouldn't leave this bed until the Reapers came for the Citadel. She blinked sleepily up at him and he brushed his lips across hers. Her hand cupped the side of his face and she smiled against his mouth. If this was what it was like waking up with Shepard in his arms, he wanted to do it every morning for the rest of his life.

Too soon, they had to get up. He watched her dress as he donned his own clothes and she took his hand in hers as they wandered through the apartment, checking on the others. The two of them, Jack, and Vega seemed to be the only ones without a hangover. Even Samara appeared to be dealing with the effects of the night before, though it was only apparent in the quietness of her voice as if that alone would be too jarring. They went downstairs and Vega offered them eggs while Kaidan excitedly said something about coffee. Shepard placed a kiss on Kolyat's cheek before accepting a plate from Vega. He wished that they could stay in this bubble of time forever.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and their end of happiness came far too soon. Thessia was a nightmare. Shepard’s heart broke for Liara. She knew what the asari was going through. Liara wasn’t unaware of the war or its effects by any means, but she’d been separated from it by her terminals and cold, hard data in place of living, screaming people. She’d seen Palaven but only from a distance and had not been on Menae for very long. Tuchanka had been rough, but it hadn’t been hit hard yet. Seeing a full-scale invasion for the first time on your homeworld, well, Shepard knew exactly how she felt. 

At least she had the comfort of knowing it wouldn’t last long. She didn’t have to wait for weeks and months while the death tolls rose into the tens of millions like Shepard and Garrus had. All they had to do was get to the Temple, find the artifact, figure out the Catalyst, and go. The Crucible was ready. Hell, for all they knew, the war could be over by this time tomorrow. Thessia was falling, true, but Earth and Palaven had fallen and that hadn’t been the end of the humans or turians. The asari just had to hold out a little longer.

She had been hesitant about bringing Kolyat along once she realized just how bad it was going to be down here. He was good, great even, but it was far and away more than he’d ever had to face before. He had insisted, though, and she’d given in to his argument that when they took the fight back to Earth, he was going to need to have experience. He was handling it admirably and she was stunned once again by how good he really was. He lacked the subtlety that would have made him a good assassin and didn’t have the temperament to kill people who hadn’t done anything to harm him or someone he loved, but that did not mean that he wasn’t deadly in his own right. Throw him into a firefight and he shined. She was proud of him and thought Thane would be, too.

Then the Temple, the beacon, Vendetta like Vigil on Ilos, Kai Leng. She watched in helpless horror as Kolyat charged the assassin like Thane had charged him once before. All she could do was call out a warning about the sword and then Kolyat was flying through the air into Liara. Her teammates went down and she fired furiously, shouting, “I’ll kill you for that, you bastard!”

“I don’t think so,” he said smugly, throwing up his barrier. “Is that the son of the one I killed on the Citadel? Have I taken father and son from you, Shepard? The Illusive Man didn’t mention that you were a xenophile.”

“I will slaughter you,” she vowed, attacking his barrier with an energy drain. 

He stood and put his finger to his ear. “Target the supports.”

A few minutes later, she was running after him, firing wildly as he flew away. The voices of the commandos rang in her ears as Reapers descended in the distance and then there was nothing but the roar of the machines. She didn’t remember calling in the shuttle or getting them on board. And when they flew away, she threw discretion to the wind and her arms around Kolyat. “I thought he’d killed you,” she said into his throat as his arms came up around her and pressed into the flexible material at her back where she could feel him.

“I’m all right,” he said. “Just knocked the wind out of me. Are you okay, Liara?” Liara looked up at them with anguish in her eyes and Shepard waved her over. She drew her friend into their embrace and they clung to each other, struggling against the weight of their failure.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Read the notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got a little (okay, a lot) dark and twisty on me. I'm not going to tag the story itself as non-con because it isn't the central theme of the story but there is female on male non-con in this chapter and the next. Also, if you ship Kolyat/Oriana, you're probably not going to like this. I can't stand Oriana. She is not a nice character in this story.

If Thessia was a nightmare, Sanctuary was a horror. They at least were able to save Miranda and Oriana, but that led to its own set of problems. Shepard was not a jealous person and didn’t consider herself to be possessive and so she didn’t see it at first. When Ori went to Kolyat while Shepard was talking to Miranda, she didn’t think anything of it. The girl had just been through a major trauma and watched her father—because, however evil the man was, he was still her father—die by her sister’s hand after he’d tried to kill her. She was understandably shaken and Kolyat had a way of talking people down that made them feel safe. 

It wasn’t until they were on the ship taking the sisters back to the Citadel before engaging on a final shore leave prior to hitting Cronos Station that the issue was really brought to her attention. Oriana fixed herself to Kolyat’s side to the point where Shepard had to decide whether seeing him was important enough to warrant rudeness to a traumatized teenage girl. She told herself that it was only for a short time and instead spent the day catching up with Miranda. When he didn’t come to her bed that night as he’d gotten in the habit of doing, she figured he’d simply gotten caught up late talking and had decided not to risk waking her. 

___

Kolyat felt sympathy for Oriana. The girl had been through a lot. Finding out that her parents hadn’t actually given birth to her after an attempted kidnapping by her father, finding out she had a sister she didn’t know about who’d known about her all along, having to move from the only home she’d ever known to hide from him, and then less than a year later, being kidnapped by him and taken to that horrendous place…it was more than any kid should have to bear. And he knew all about that.

He tried to keep his thoughts away from his mother’s death. She didn’t need to hear about that. He hadn’t even told Shepard about that except in broad strokes. Instead, he thought about Thane. He told her about the stranger who occasionally made an appearance but was too busy even when he was home. He told her about growing up in the care of his aunts and uncles after his mother died and his father finally abandoned him for good, about seeking out the man he’d never known, trying to figure out whether the deficit was in Thane or in Kolyat himself, of discovering the truth of what his father was. “I know what it’s like to find out your entire life was a lie,” he said to her.

She looked up from the glass of something fruity and alcoholic that Miranda had permitted her to have. There was something in her eyes that gave him a moment of notice before she threw herself across the couch and into his arms. He caught her reflexively and then her mouth was on his throat, his frill, his lips. He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back, shaking his head. She was pretty and sweet and far too young and innocent and so not Shepard. “I’m sorry, Oriana. I can’t. I belong to another.”

She pulled back and ducked her head, her cheeks heating behind the veil of her hair. “I’m sorry, Kolyat. I didn’t realize. It’s Shepard, isn’t it? I should have known. I saw the way you looked at each other. You know what? Let’s have another drink and pretend that never happened.”

He glanced at the time on his omni-tool. Shepard would be expecting him. He said, “Why don’t we call it a night and we can talk more in the morning? She’s waiting for me.”

“One more?” she asked. “Please, Kolyat? She’ll understand, won’t she?”

Shepard would understand, he knew. She’d seen her parents die, too. She understood that they were in a type of club that no one ever wanted to join. He nodded and said, “One more.” 

Oriana gave him a dazzling smile and leapt up from the couch. He didn’t think he’d ever been young in the way that she was. Despite everything that had happened to her, there was a youthful innocence about her that was endearing. He understood why Miranda wanted to protect her. She really was beautiful. She’d make some man very happy someday. Just…not him. He had everything he wanted in Shepard. 

She took a seat again, tucking her leg beneath her, and passed him a glass. Thinking about Shepard was making him restless. He wanted to go up, slide into bed with her, and feel her hands and mouth on his body. He drank quickly, suppressing a grimace at the too-sweet concoction. He didn’t want to hurt Oriana’s feelings. Fruit made up a large part of a drell’s diet and he liked sweet things, but this was almost cloying. She was watching him closely and something in her expression made warnings sound in the back of his mind. He told himself he was being ridiculous. She was a teenage girl. He was a cop and a regular member of Shepard’s ground team. He’d fought harvesters. She wasn’t a threat. 

His head was spinning slightly as he attempted to stand up. He thought at first that he’d simply had too much to drink and was more intoxicated than he’d realized. His arms and legs wouldn’t cooperate and his brow flickered in confusion. He shouldn’t be that drunk. A glance at Oriana showed her smiling triumphantly and he felt a frisson of alarm. He tried to call out to EDI but his words slurred. _Oh, shit_ , he thought. What had been in that drink?

When she reached out and ran her hands over his chest, he tried again to call for EDI. Oriana shook her head at him in reproach and said, “EDI, engage privacy mode.”

“Logging you out, Ms. Lawson,” EDI said. _No!_

Oriana slid his jacket off and tossed it aside before slipping her hands beneath his shirt. They felt a little bit like Shepard’s hands with their five individual fingers, but they were too soft, lacking the callouses and miniature muscles from years of holding weapons. He tried to pull away, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. His shirt fell to the floor and she pushed him back with dismaying ease. He managed a weak kick when she tugged his boots off, but it only made her laugh. 

“No one turns Oriana Lawson down,” she said conversationally but there was a bite to her words. “Do you know what Miri talks about? Commander Shepard. ‘I brought Commander Shepard back to life.’ ‘Commander Shepard is the best fighter I’ve ever seen.’ ‘Commander Shepard is brilliant.’ ‘Shepard helped me save you.’ ‘Shepard took down a thresher maw.’ ‘Shepard led us through the Omega 4 relay when no one thought she could.’ ‘Shepard is going to save us all.’ Shepard, Shepard, Shepard. Like she’s some kind of bloody icon. I’m so sick of hearing about Shepard. And then who comes in to save the day _again_? Commander Fucking Shepard. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad to be away from that man and that place, but Miranda could have handled it. And now I’m going to have to listen to more of it. And then you…” 

Oriana shook her head as she stood and pulled her dress off. “You come in all sexy and tough with that big rifle on your back and your pistol drawn and I thought, ‘There he is. All I’ve ever wanted.’ But we get on the shuttle and you, like everyone else in this damn galaxy, can’t keep your eyes off of _Shepard_. She’s not even that pretty. Miranda and I are perfect. And you didn’t even look. Well, you’re mine now. Do you think Shepard will still want you when she finds out I’ve had you?”

The sound of tearing fabric drew his attention and he saw her rip a strip from the hem of her dress. Another tug freed a second piece. He couldn’t pull away when she tied the first around his wrists and secured it to something at the bottom of the couch, stretching his arms up over his head. He tried to bite when she stuffed the second piece into his mouth and tied it around his head, but she merely shook her head again and ran her tongue across his frill. 

“Don’t try to tell me you don’t want it,” she said, drawing a finger down his erection. He cursed his body for responding to the physical stimulus as she wrapped her hand around him. “I couldn’t do this if you didn’t want it. Be honest, Kolyat. I’m younger. I’m prettier. I’m not covered in those revolting scars. You want me.”

 _I don’t!_ he insisted silently as she stroked him. He tried to pull his hands free, but whatever she’d used to drug him was strong and he couldn’t make his body respond to his commands. She was going to be able to do whatever she wanted to him and he couldn’t do a damn thing to stop her. Shame rolled over him. He should have gotten up and walked away when she tried to kiss him. He should never have agreed to another drink. What was Shepard going to think? How was he possibly going to tell her about this? A part of him hoped that she would come down looking for him and stop this, but another part of him hoped desperately that she would never see him like this. She would never believe that he’d been unwilling, especially when, to his absolute horror, his body responded against his will to Oriana’s eager hands and mouth and he felt himself spill across his belly. He was going to lose her.

“See?” Oriana said, moving up to straddle him. “I knew you wanted me. You just needed permission to let go.”

She sank down onto him and he closed his eyes. Feron had told him once that when the Broker’s torture became too much, he’d found he could lose himself in memory and distance from it. He didn’t want to bring Shepard into this moment, but if he remembered her, he could almost convince himself that it _was_ her and then he didn’t feel so much like he was betraying her. He deliberately disconnected his mind from his body and lost himself in the memory of her.

___

Kolyat wasn’t at chow the next morning, but Shepard was quickly drawn into the day-to-day running of the ship. There were things she’d neglected the day before that needed to be dealt with and it wasn’t uncommon for her to go the entire day without seeing one of her crew. She paused mid-stride while going to seek out something from Liara when she heard a feminine giggle coming from the lounge. The sound made her smile. It was good to hear laughter on the ship. They hadn’t had much of it since Thessia. Then, she spotted Miranda in the med bay talking with Dr. Chakwas. Her brow furrowed and she cast a look at the closed door. The lock was engaged. Who was she laughing with? She shook her head and told herself to stop being paranoid. The girl had been through a lot and Kolyat wouldn’t do anything inappropriate.

That evening, however, when he didn’t come up and hadn’t been at dinner, she found herself pacing the floor. She trusted Kol. She even loved him. He wouldn’t betray her. They hadn’t formalized their relationship or spoken of exclusivity, but she knew from Thane that drell were monogamous. Or, at least, he had been. It didn’t matter. She didn’t have a claim on Kolyat. If he wanted to be with someone else, then she wouldn’t stand in his way. She did want to know, though. 

“Shepard,” EDI said, breaking into her debate, “I think you should go to the Lounge. Kolyat just requested in drell that I ‘get Siha.’ I believe he means you.”

“Is something wrong?” Shepard asked, turning to leave the cabin. 

EDI’s voice bordered on alarm when she replied, “Shepard, you should go. Now.”

She found Miranda in the mess hall and asked if she knew where Oriana was. Miranda smiled and said, “Yeah. She’s in the Lounge with Thane’s son. They’ve been holed up in there for some time now. Ori is quite taken with him. Do you ever wish you were that young again, Shepard? Shepard?”

Shepard turned and strode down the passageway to the Lounge. If he wanted to be with Oriana, if he’d found someone who fit him better than she did, that was fine. She didn’t have a claim on him, though they’d been sleeping together every night for weeks. She’d told him things she’d never told anyone before. She had the right to at least know if he was otherwise involved. However, if he was asking for her as Siha, then it sounded like something else was wrong. Siha was a warrior, a protector. He needed help. Her fist slammed harder into the door panel than she’d intended and she forced herself to calm down as the door opened. She couldn’t see them clearly because the back of the couch was blocking her view, but she could see the top of Oriana’s head and could see their reflections clearly enough in the window.

Kolyat was sprawled naked on his back with a foot on the floor and his hands above his head. Oriana, also naked, was lying on top of him with her mouth on his. A strip of cloth hung around his neck. The girl jumped when the door opened and Kolyat bucked Oriana off of him. His eyes were wide and full of a plethora of emotions as he met Shepard’s in the reflection of the window. Shepard knew that look. It made her stomach turn. There was guilt there, but not the guilt that came from doing something wrong. Oriana glared at her and Kolyat rolled off of the couch and attempted to free his hands. “What the hell is going on here?” she demanded.

“It’s not what you think!” he insisted.

She crossed her arms over her chest and rocked back on her heel as Oriana threw her dress over her head. “Really, Kol?” Shepard asked. “Because it looked to me like she was forcing herself on you.” Shepard’s eyes flashed and she walked further into the room. Oriana slunk back from her. 

He blinked at her and said in a voice full of relief, “Oh, goddess of oceans. I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“Don’t take another step, Oriana Lawson, or I will toss you out the airlock while Javik watches,” she said as Oriana tried to slide past her. “What happened, Kol?”

“She was upset over everything that happened on Sanctuary,” he said. “And I’m the only one on this ship who’s even close to her age. So she came to me. I felt bad for her. After dinner last night, she asked Miranda if she could have a drink or two. Miranda said yes. So we had some drinks and we were talking about our parents and I told her about Dad and…” 

His eyes took on a faraway look. “‘I know what it’s like to feel unloved and unworthy.’ She looks at me, turns, throws her arms around me. I push her back. ‘No, Oriana. I’m sorry. I belong to another.’ She sits back, apologizes. Her cheeks flush. She looks embarrassed. I make a joke. She offers me another drink, gets up, makes it as I look out at the blanket of stars. She returns. I drink. It’s too sweet, but I don’t tell her. She says nothing, watching me. I grow uneasy. My head spins. She smiles. I try to rise and can’t. My limbs refuse my command. ‘EDI, engage privacy mode,’ she says. ‘Yes, Ms. Lawson.’ I watch as she pushes me back on the couch. Her hands move over my clothes, removing my jacket, my shirt. She rips a strip from her dress and ties it around my hands. Another strip goes in my mouth. I cannot move. I cannot speak…”

Shepard glanced over at Oriana as dread pooled in her belly. The hem of the girl’s dress was ragged. Oriana looked at her defiantly, brow up, lips quirked, arms over her chest, daring Shepard to respond. Kolyat continued, “She removes my boots. I hear them hit the deck. My pants follow. Then she is standing beside me, removing the torn dress from her body. I try to move and still cannot. I realize there was something in the drink. How will I tell Shepard? What will she say? Oriana moves, straddles me, and licks my neck. Her hand runs over me. Human, like Shepard, but not Shepard’s. ‘Don't try to tell me you don't want this,’ she says, wrapping her hand around me. ‘I couldn’t do this if you didn’t want it.’ She mistakes response to physical stimulus for response to her. I do not want her.”

“Stop,” Shepard said shakily. “Kolyat, enough. Miranda, get in here!”

Kolyat didn’t seem to hear her. He continued speaking, relaying detail after horrifying detail.

“Shepard, what’s going on?” Miranda demanded as she strode down the passageway. 

“Your sister raped my boyfriend,” Shepard answered as Miranda entered the room. She went to Kolyat and drew him down on the couch beside her and laid his jacket over his lap. She didn’t know if she should touch him or not, but he leaned into her, so she put her arm around him.

“Your boy…oh, no. Shepard, I swear I didn’t know. I am so sorry. I would never have encouraged her if I had,” Miranda said.

“You encouraged her to drug him?” Shepard asked doubtfully.

“What? No!” Miranda said. “She asked me for advice on getting him to notice her. What do you mean, she drugged him?”

“I didn’t,” Oriana protested. “He’s lying because his girlfriend caught him fucking another woman. He put up a token resistance so he could say he did. He liked it. He wanted me to tie him up. He was begging for it.”

“Kolyat wouldn’t lie about that,” Shepard said.

“What happened, EDI?” Miranda asked, moving to stop Oriana from running through the door. Shepard wasn’t sure where she thought she would go. They were in space.

EDI said, “As Kolyat stated, they were speaking together. Oriana attempted to kiss Kolyat and he told her no. She prepared a drink for him and a few minutes later, she instructed me to engage privacy mode. I complied, which disabled my audiovisual feed unless I am directly addressed. He did so ten minutes ago in an old drell dialect which is not covered by most translation software and said, ‘Get Siha.’ I alerted the commander immediately. He instructed Oriana to get off of him and began to attempt to remove her. It was then that I realized that he was not a willing participant.”

“I thought he was being romantic,” Oriana said.

“You are insane,” Shepard said. She looked at EDI’s platform and said, “Take her to the engineering subdeck and keep her there.” It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Miranda. She simply didn’t trust that Oriana wouldn’t somehow manipulate Miranda. And she didn’t trust Oriana with any of her other crew. EDI couldn’t be drugged.

“Shepard, Kolyat, I am so sorry,” Miranda said. “I had no idea she was capable of that.”

Kolyat had finally finished relaying his memories and sat quietly with his head bowed. Shepard nodded at Miranda and said, “We’ll talk later. She’s under arrest until I decide what to do with her. Honestly, I may have to confer with Kaidan on this. He’s a Spectre as well and is unbiased and I very much am not. The only reason I didn’t kill her where she stood is because she’s your sister.”

Miranda left the room and EDI engaged the lock. Shepard turned to Kolyat and turned his face to her as she knelt in front of him. “Kol, honey, look at me.”

“I’m sorry, Shepard,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have let her do that.”

“You didn’t let her do anything,” Shepard said. “She raped you and she will pay for it.”

His brows flickered in confusion and he said, “Shepard, I’m a man. If a part of me hadn’t wanted it, she couldn’t—”

“Bullshit,” Shepard said. “That idea is archaic and incorrect. You did nothing wrong. Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you dressed.”

“I don’t think I want you to see me like this,” he whispered.

She sat back and said, “If you really don’t want me here, I’ll go. But if you’re embarrassed or ashamed and are afraid I’m going to judge you or think less of you, you’re wrong.” He buried his face in his hands and began to shake. Tentatively, she put a hand on his shoulder. When he didn’t pull away, she drew him into her arms. “It’s all right, honey. You’re safe now. You’re okay.”

“I’m a cop,” he said. “I’ve taken on Cerberus and Reapers and mercenaries and a clone of you that was trying to kill you. And a teenage girl…”

“Hey,” she said firmly. “Don’t talk like that. You couldn’t have known. You had no reason to suspect her. None of us did.”

“I should have left when she tried to kiss me,” he said. “I didn’t. I stayed. I let this happen.”

“No, Kolyat! You didn’t,” she said, turning his face toward hers again. “Look at me, Kol. You did not cause this. You did not do anything wrong. You didn’t ask for it. You didn’t deserve it. This isn’t your fault. You aren’t dirty or weak or bad or any of the other negative things running through your head right now.” 

She dressed him as he’d done for her once and he let her lead him out of the lounge. She instructed EDI to seal the room. She’d get Garrus and Kaidan to do an investigation to find out exactly what Oriana had used, but right now, her focus was on Kolyat. Kaidan came out of the crew quarters and said, “What’s going on? I thought I heard shouting.”

“I want you and Garrus to meet me in the briefing room in two hours,” she said. “Until then, no one goes in the lounge. If you see Oriana Lawson outside of the engineering subdeck, she is to be shot on sight.” 

He looked at her in confusion but nodded. “Is he all right?”

“He will be,” she said. “Tell Dr. Chakwas to come into my cabin in half an hour.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I debated a lot about posting this. I tried to go back and change it multiple times to remove it and had actually intended it as a misunderstanding between Shepard and Kolyat that was supposed to fit with the mostly light-hearted tone of the rest of the story but it didn't come out that way. So I decided to use it. Female on male sexual harassment/non-con/dub-con doesn't get much attention and there are still people out there who believe it isn't possible. It is and comes with its own unique set of issues for the males to whom it happens. I hope that I'm able to do justice in illustrating those issues and to allow Shepard to support Kolyat as he's supported her throughout the story.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Discussion/aftermath of non-con.

When they reached the cabin, Kolyat went into the shower. She took a seat on the bed and waited for him. A long time later, he came out and turned his back on her as he dressed in clean leathers. He threw the discarded ones in the chute to be incinerated. Her heart clenched and she wanted to reach out to him. She hated feeling so helpless. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know if he would want her to touch him or to stay away. She decided to let him come to her. 

He did, kneeling down in front of her and burying his face in her lap. She stroked his smooth head and made what she hoped were comforting noises until he stopped shaking. EDI said quietly, “Shepard, Dr. Chakwas is requesting entry.”

“Let her in,” Shepard said. 

“EDI told me what happened,” Karin said. “Kolyat, I would like to do a scan to find out what substance was used on you and if there is any remaining in your system. May I do that?”

He stood and turned to the doctor. Karin scanned him and then stepped back out of his space. He took a seat beside Shepard and she felt his hand slide into hers. The doctor scowled and said, “That bitch. She utilized a common date-rape drug that incapacitates its victims while leaving them completely conscious of everything that is going on. Normally, it also causes memory loss after the fact, but it doesn’t have that effect on drell. The good news is that it’s almost entirely out of your system. I’m sorry, Kolyat.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said.

“It isn’t yours, either,” Karin said. “We don’t have a psychologist on board since Kelly left us, but I do have some training and have counseled people through circumstances such as this in the past. If you would like to talk to me, please know that I will keep your confidences and do my best to help you. I can also refer you to someone on the Citadel if you would rather talk to someone else.”

“I’ll be all right,” he said. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“What do you need?” Shepard asked when the doctor left. 

“I can still smell her,” he said, closing his eyes. “And that triggers memories.”

“You need sand,” she said, remembering what he’d told her about drell taking sand baths. 

He nodded and said, “Or…to smell like you.”

“That, I can do,” she said. “Come here.” She laid back on the bed and he placed his head on her chest. She doubted that he wanted sex right now, but there were other ways to transfer scent. Garrus had told her once that human hair held a lot of scent, so she ran her hands through it and then began to gently touch his face and neck and shoulders. If nothing else, he’d at least smell like her shampoo. 

Gradually, he relaxed until he was hovering on the edge of sleep. She was late for her meeting with Garrus and Kaidan, but they’d understand. She pressed her lips to his head and said, “Try to get some sleep, all right? I’ll have EDI guard the door until I get back.”

“Do you think I’m weak, Shepard?” he asked.

“No,” she said firmly. “I think we take care of and protect each other. You did it for me when things got rough on the Collector mission. You came for me when the clone sent those mercs to kill me. I don’t think I’d have gotten out of there without you. You took care of me when Tali died. You’ve been there for me through a lot and I’m going to be here for you now. And, right now, that means letting EDI watch over you while I go take care of the bitch who dared to put her hands on my boyfriend without his permission.”

“I love you, Shepard,” he whispered.

“I love you, too, Kol. I’ll be back soon.” She kissed his forehead and slipped out of the bed.

___

“What the hell’s going on?” Kaidan asked as she came into the briefing room. 

Garrus said, “EDI won’t tell us anything.”

Shepard leaned up against the table and said, “What I am about to tell you goes no further. I need the two of you to look into a matter and determine a course of action.”

“Us?” Garrus asked. 

“I’m too close to the situation,” Shepard said. “Before I send a teenage girl to prison for the rest of her life, I have to be absolutely certain that I’m not letting my personal involvement cloud my judgment. I haven’t seen Kolyat since around 1800 yesterday. Before that, each time I did see him, he was in the presence of Oriana Lawson. At 1900 yesterday, I went to the crew deck and heard a female voice matching Oriana’s coming from the lounge. Miranda was in the med bay, so I am certain that it was not her voice I heard, though they sound similar. The door to the lounge was locked. 

“Three hours ago, at 2130, EDI informed me that I was needed in the lounge. She stated that Kolyat had instructed her to ‘Get Siha.’ Siha is a name that Thane gave to me referencing a warrior angel in drell mythology who is stated to be a ‘tenacious protector.’ Kolyat refuses to use the word for me because it is what Thane called his mother. For him to refer to me in that way was, in my opinion, his way of sending me a message that he was in trouble. I left my cabin and went to the crew deck. Miranda was in the mess hall and when I inquired about Oriana’s whereabouts, she informed me that Oriana was in the lounge with Kolyat and that they had been there for some time.”

“I don’t think I like where this is going,” Garrus said.

She looked up at him and said, “I went into the lounge and discovered Kolyat lying on his back, nude, with his hands tied to the couch. Oriana was on top of him and was also nude. They were…having sex. Oriana jumped when I entered the room and Kolyat was able to—Kolyat disengaged.” Damn, it was hard to phrase this in a way that wouldn’t color their view of the events. She wanted to shout, ‘Ori did it!’ She wanted to go down to engineering and put a bullet in the girl’s brain. Instead, she kept talking. “Kolyat claimed that Oriana drugged him, engaged EDI’s privacy mode, and proceeded to restrain and gag him in order to engage in sexual relations with him without his consent, which he says she did multiple times over the past day cycle. Oriana claims that she did not drug him, that he was willing, and that he lied because I caught him. Dr. Chakwas confirmed the presence of a common date-rape drug in his system via scan. EDI has audio and video of everything that occurred while she was not set to privacy mode.” 

Kaidan said, “I see now why you need help on this one, but Garrus is the cop. Why me?”

She said, “Because you can sentence her without a trial. I am not going to make him go before a court and relive that over and over while they pick it apart. This will be handled here, on the Normandy, and it needs to be dealt with before we reach the Citadel. Garrus, you can interview Kolyat in the morning. Oriana is confined below engineering. She is not to leave that area without one of you present. The lounge has been sealed and you two are the only ones allowed access. When you have finished your investigation, find me. If you both concur that she is guilty, we will deal with her here. If you cannot agree, I will call in Samara once we reach the Citadel and will go with her judgment. If you believe that she is innocent, then she will be released.”

“Sounds fair,” Kaidan said.

“A lot fairer than I’d be,” Garrus said. “I’m surprised you didn’t just shoot her.”

“I wanted to,” she admitted. “If she wasn’t Miranda’s sister, I would have. But I didn’t and now I have to ensure that she’s given due process.”

When Kaidan left, Garrus said, “Are you sure that bringing him into this is a good idea? He isn’t entirely unbiased himself.”

“He has a family member that was raped,” Shepard said. “His views on the subject are very strong. They won’t let him allow her to get away with it because of his feelings for me. His honor won’t let him accuse her without cause. Garrus, if I’m wrong and she didn’t do what he said she did, I want to know.”

“But you don’t think you’re wrong, do you?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I trust him. That’s why I can’t be the one to look into this.”

He was asleep when she returned to the cabin. She slipped into the bed beside him and he put his arms around her, pulling her into him. “Shepard?” he asked.

“I’m here,” she said softly. “Go back to sleep. I’ve got you.” He nuzzled the back of her neck and his breathing evened out once more. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

Shepard turned to face the door as Miranda came in. The normally cool and calm ex-Cerberus operative looked pale and drawn. She wrung her hands together in a way that reminded Shepard of Liara and asked if they could talk. Shepard led her into the living area and took a seat on the couch. She knew it was unreasonable, but she had to fight against anger that tried to turn toward Miranda. It wasn’t Miranda’s fault aside from the fact that she’d allowed an underage girl to drink on board the ship. But, technically, Grunt was underage as well and Shepard had allowed him ryncol. If Miranda had asked her, she likely would have thought ‘what’s the harm’ and let her do it. The Normandy was supposed to be a safe place for her crew when not under outside attack. Ultimately, it was her own responsibility to ensure that.

“How is Kolyat?” Miranda asked.

“He’ll be all right,” Shepard said. He’d woken from nightmares once during the night, but those were a fairly regular occurrence for both of them. She was just angry that his repertoire had been added to while he said that at least it wasn’t of his mother dying. He’d been less shaky that morning and had taken breakfast with the crew before returning to Life Support to meditate. She was leaving him alone until he came to her but had requested that EDI monitor him.

“Shepard, I am so sorry,” Miranda said again. “I had no idea…and that’s no excuse. I didn’t know her as well as I thought. She seemed like this sweet, innocent girl who needed to be protected. I knew she was spoiled, but after everything she’s been through, I didn’t see the harm in it. She’s never been denied anything she wanted and I suppose that made her feel as if she was entitled to whatever she desired even if it was another person.”

“I know, Miranda,” she said wearily.

Miranda said, “Do you remember when I told you that my father wanted to build a dynasty? Do you…is it clear what I meant by that? What he did to me and what he did to Ori when he got his hands on her? When I said he was capable of anything?”

“You mean he molested you,” Shepard said. 

“Yes,” Miranda said, getting up to pace the room. “It’s not an excuse for her behavior by any means. I just want you to understand that she…I think it twisted her in a way it didn’t me. I don’t know why it didn’t have the same effect on me. I withdrew from men. She, clearly, went the other way.”

Shepard said, “You had to work for what you got. She didn’t. You didn’t have a chance to become entitled the way that she did.” 

Miranda laughed bitterly. “I thought I was giving her a better life. And now she’s destroyed it. I’m not here to ask you for mercy, Shepard. She doesn’t deserve it. I just…I thought that maybe if Kolyat understood what she’d been through, he’d see that it wasn’t anything to do with him. It was her own demons and she let them out to play.”

Shepard said, “I’m letting Garrus and Kaidan handle it. They’re going to be the ones to recommend her punishment if they find evidence to support her guilt.”

“She did it,” Miranda said. “She admitted it to me. And…I don’t think he was the first. When I asked her why she’d done it, she said, ‘No one turns Oriana Lawson down.’”

“Thanks for telling me that, Miranda,” she said. “Kolyat told me she said the same thing to him.”

“Whatever you decide for her, I’ll support it,” Miranda said. “I don’t…I don’t want her to die. She’s my sister and I love her even if she did do something awful. But I know that she deserves whatever you choose to do to her.”

A few hours later, Kaidan and Garrus came up to her cabin. They informed her that after reviewing the evidence and speaking to all parties involved, they did find reason to believe that Oriana had forced Kolyat. Garrus told her that the penalty for rape on Palaven was castration and exile to a labor colony. Kaidan recommended prison. Shepard still wanted to kill her. She compromised with prison and forcing Oriana to bear the same mark that human males were given when convicted since castration wasn’t an option for her. Kaidan promised to make sure it happened.

___

Shepard retreated to her apartment. Kolyat found her the following day, still in her dress blues, sitting in front of the window with a mostly empty bottle of whiskey at her feet. She didn’t turn when he came in. She couldn’t face him. He walked over to her and picked up the bottle and then leaned in and smelled her. He pulled back quickly and said, “Shepard, you smell like the floor behind the bar at Purgatory. What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry, Kolyat,” she said dully.

He froze and stared at her. “You don’t want me,” he said. 

“What?” she asked, confused. “Why wouldn’t I want you, Kol?”

“I’m tainted goods now, right?” he said bitterly. “That’s why you’ve barely touched me and spent last night alone. You fought off an Ardat-Yakshi through willpower alone. I let a teenage girl drug and rape me. Not really the right kind of mate for a Spectre saving the galaxy, is it?”

She turned slowly and faced him. “Kolyat, I haven’t touched you because I didn’t want to bring up bad memories. I don’t think you’re tainted and I don’t think you’re weak.”

“I wanted _you_ , Shepard,” he said. “And you just laid there like you couldn’t stand to have my skin against you.”

“Kolyat, what are you talking about? You’d just gotten free of her. I didn’t think you were ready. Hell, I don’t know why you’d want me. I can’t even keep my people safe on my own damn ship!” She raked her hands through her hair in frustration. “I saw the door locked. I walked right by it. I could have stopped it and I didn’t. No one locks the lounge unless they’re fucking and I _heard_ her. I knew she’d been plastered over you all day. I told myself I was being paranoid. And I didn’t check to see where you were when you didn’t come to bed because I didn’t want to be that clingy, needy girlfriend who has to know exactly where her boyfriend is when there’s a pretty girl around. 

“I should have checked the lounge. I should have asked EDI where you were. I should have had protocols in place that wouldn’t allow her to go into privacy mode without the request being made by all parties in the room or ensured that she wouldn’t comply with the request unless it was made by a permanent member of the crew. Oriana should never have been able to do that in the first place. The Normandy is _my ship_ , Kolyat. I’m ultimately responsible for what happens on her and I allowed you to come to harm. I’ve never liked Oriana. She’s rubbed me the wrong way from the day I met her. I ignored my instincts because she was Miranda’s sister and you paid the price for it and I am so very sorry for that, Kol.” 

He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Is that why you locked yourself in here since we docked? You feel guilty? Shepard, don’t. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It’s my ship,” she said simply. 

“Stop blaming yourself,” he said. “You aren't at fault here. Now, we are going to take a shower because you really do stink and then we are going to fuck like…those Earth animals that breed a lot. And we are going to wipe out every memory of that bitch. And then, we’re going to hit Cerberus and kill that bastard who murdered my father and the man who sent him and we’re going to wipe out the Reapers once and for all. Does that sound like a plan to you?”

“Rabbits,” she said with a grin. “We’re going to fuck like rabbits.”

He kissed her and said, “I thought of you. I don’t know if that’s okay or not but I thought…if I thought about you, if I pretended it was you, then it was just something that happened to my body and she wouldn’t get my mind. I’m yours, Shepard, for as long as you want me.”

“Always, Kol,” she said, stroking the side of his face. “I want you for every bit of always I have left.”

He groaned and lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist and carried her up the stairs and into the guest bathroom—why they hadn’t put a shower in her own, she would never understand—and stripped her down with surprising ease. He set her on her feet long enough to remove his own clothing and then lifted her back up and stepped into the shower. Hot water cascaded down over them, glittering off of his scales and turning them into prisms on his skin. “You are so beautiful, Kol,” she said, suddenly desperate to have him. Some primal need that went far beyond the desire to comfort told her that she had to claim him, to stake out her territory, to wipe away the mark of another on him. He seemed as caught up in it as she did, stroking her open with his fingers before sinking into her. They crashed into the wall together as she bit down hard on the side of his neck. It was feral, it was rough, it wasn’t anything like the gentle, soothing lovemaking she’d expected him to need. His hands were insistent on her and she responded in kind, refusing to go easy on him unless he asked for it. The water rained down on them as he lifted and slammed her back down onto him and she let him take control. When they shuddered against each other in completion, he quickly washed her without releasing her and then carried her from the room. 

They tumbled wet and uncaring onto the guest bed and Shepard rolled him beneath her. It was her turn, now, and she was going to replace every memory that spoiled bitch had left him with. She covered his body with her hands and mouth, touching every part of him, claiming it as hers. When she took him into her mouth, his hips bucked hard, driving him into her throat and she grinned. She wanted him writhing beneath her, calling her name, seeing only her. “Do you trust me?” she asked, stalking up his body.

“Of course,” he answered.

She kissed him softly as she gently took his wrists and pinned them to the mattress above his head. “Is this all right?” she asked. He nodded and she lowered onto him, feeling him fill her. His eyes never left hers and he moved with her, telling her that he loved her, that he belonged to her. She rode him slowly, controlling the pace until she felt his knees draw up and his breathing grew ragged. His back arched and his hands tightened on hers. 

“Shepard,” he groaned and thrust sharply upward, making her gasp and call out his name. She tried to maintain her control. This was his time, not hers, but he dragged the ridges that ran along his length against her and she moaned. 

“Harder,” she ordered as she rocked against him, holding him deep inside of her. He moaned her name and his entire body tensed. “Come for me, Kol,” she gasped and he buried himself inside of her with a shout. She convulsed around him and collapsed forward onto his chest. 

His arms came around her and he held her tightly, nuzzling her wet hair. “Thank you, Shepard,” he said quietly. “I needed that.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Kolyat,” she said honestly. 

"You'll never have to find out," he said.


	14. Chapter 14

Kolyat listened in horror as EDI broadcast the communications between Shepard and Admiral Hackett. He knew, even as it was happening, that this memory was going to rank among the worst of his life. It was going to rival even the death of his mother. He was losing Shepard. He could hear it in her voice. She was dying. He desperately wanted to escape into a happier memory—Irikah’s voice putting him to bed at night as a child, dancing crazy with his father on one of the rare occasions that he’d had his attention, Shepard’s smile the first time he’d held her, seeing her sink her blade into Kai Leng’s chest and hearing ‘That was for Thane, you son of a bitch!’ snarl from her mouth, finding one last moment of peace in the FOB with her in his arms and dreaming together about after the war—but he wouldn’t abandon her, even figuratively, in her final moments.

Beside him, Garrus keened and shouted, “She shouldn’t have sent us back, damn it!”

“You’d have died, too, if I hadn’t gotten you patched up,” Dr. Chakwas said.

“You think we care about that?” Kolyat snapped.

“No,” she said quietly, casting her eyes up to the overhead as if it would allow them to see what they were hearing. “Damn it, Shepard. Hold on.” 

When Hackett gave the order to retreat through the relay, Kolyat looked wildly at Garrus and shouted, “No! We can’t leave her! You’re the XO. Don’t let him do that!”

“But she said—”

“Who cares what she said? Do you think she realized when she said it that she was going to be all alone up there? Garrus, I swear to Arashu that if you don’t tell him to belay that order, I will go down and steal the shuttle and go find her myself!” Kolyat said.

Garrus nodded. “All right. EDI, tell Joker to belay that order.”

EDI said, “Jeff has already chosen to remain in the system. All hands, brace for impact.”

Garrus and Kolyat stared at each other as the three of them braced against the med bay beds. They had no idea what they were bracing against, and when the sinister red light washed through the bay, he thought they were done for. The ship bucked hard and then settled out and they looked around in confusion. That was it? 

“Joker, report!” Garrus said.

“Give me a minute!” Joker shouted back. They could hear alarms going off in the cockpit and Joker yelled EDI’s name. 

There was a moment of hesitation and then she answered, “I am here, Jeff.”

Joker sighed audibly and demanded, “What the hell just happened?”

“It appears the Crucible released some type of energy pulse,” EDI said. “It disabled my platform, but I was able to switch to a backup copy I created in case of such an eventuality. Our systems are online. The Reapers appear to be disabled. Jeff, the Citadel exploded. I am picking up life signs from Shepard, but they are waning quickly. We must hurry.”

Nothing could have prepared Kolyat for the destruction they found on the Citadel. He looked around the blackened rubble beneath the groaning Crucible and wondered how anyone could have survived. EDI continued to feed them data on Shepard’s condition, so he knew that she was alive, but he had no idea where to begin looking for her. Her name echoed across the battered area as they shouted for her, but she gave no response. 

He looked helplessly at Garrus, who’d taken on a predatory look that Kolyat had never seen before. “I smell her,” Garrus said. “This way.”

Garrus led them to a pile of scorched debris and Vega shouted, “Over here! We found her!”

“Hold on, Shepard!” Liara called out. 

“How are we going to move this?” Vega asked, grunting as he dug his shoulder into a concrete pillar. “It’s too heavy to lift.” 

Kolyat looked at Liara and Kaidan. “Step aside,” Kaidan said. “We’ve got this.”

As one, their bodies began to glow with dark energy and they synchronized their biotics to lift the heavy pillar. It fell to the side with a reverberating crash and Vega and Garrus began to dig through the smaller pieces beneath. Kolyat threw chunks of rubble out of the way and shouted, “Shepard!” when he saw the glint of metal from her dog tags. His hands faltered when he saw her. 

She was burned. Badly. He almost couldn’t differentiate her from the debris around her. Fear threatened to choke him as he realized that finding her didn’t necessarily mean they’d saved her. She needed medical attention and she needed it now. He gently lifted her off of the ground, wincing as she moaned in pain. “I’m here, Shepard,” he said. “I’ve got you. You’re going to be all right.” He hoped he wasn’t lying to her.

___

Two months later, Kolyat was standing beside her hospital bed with his hands folded. He’d all but given up on praying and was now just waiting for Liara to come relieve him so that he could get back to the apartment to work. He wanted to be with Shepard, but he felt so helpless here. She still hadn’t woken up and there was nothing they could do. The doctors said to give her time, but it was beginning to feel like nothing would ever change. He was starting to worry that she would never wake up, she’d just lie here in this limbo state forever. At least at the apartment, he was able to do something useful and could lose himself in the labor of cleanup. 

The rhythm of the steady beeps from the monitor changed, drawing his attention, and his throat clenched. He didn’t want to look up, didn’t want to see her draw in that last breath. The scene was far too close to his father’s death and he didn’t know if he could handle it if he lost Shepard, too. His eyes flew open when he heard her say weakly, “Kolyat. You’re here.”

He breathed a heavy sigh of relief and bent down to press his lips against her forehead as he stroked her hair back. She smelled of antiseptic and hospital but he didn’t care. She was alive. She was awake. She was here with him. Nothing else mattered. “Always,” he said. “All of your always. You did it, Shepard. You stopped the Reapers. Your crew is safe. Your ship is safe. You saved us all.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” she admitted, bringing her hand up to cover his. “I thought I was dying and all I could see was your face. Do you remember that first time you met me at the docks when we came in to resupply? It was back when we still had to go through C-Sec to get into the wards. I got out of the taxi and you were standing there in your uniform with your hip propped up against the counter and you looked so arrogant and beautiful and your eyes lit up when you saw me. I thought, ‘I could get used to coming home to this.’ That’s what I remembered.”

“You’ll get to,” he promised. “Every day. Marry me, Shepard.”

“Yes,” she said. “Oh, wow. Is that all it takes to get you to smile?”

“If you want me to smile, Shepard, you just needed to say so. You don’t even have to punch me in the face or anything,” he teased.

“Shut up and kiss me,” she said.

“Aye aye, ma’am.”


End file.
